General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How about raising the Medicare age on the top one percent? [View all]limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Wealthy people are healthier between the ages of 65-70. Healthier people use less insurance dollars.
If you kick the youngest (age 65) healthiest people out of the Medicare pool, you are not just hurting those people, you are hurting all of us and weakening Medicare. To strengthen Medicare we should lower the age to bring in healthier people. The strongest Medicare system would be one that included everybody. The more you shrink the pool, the more you weaken it.
By privatizing Medicare for age-65 seniors above a certain income, you would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. Maybe with good intentions, trying to deny benefits to the wealthy, but as a result costing the program money.
In order to keep costs down for middle class Americans, we have to keep the wealthiest healthiest people in the pool paying their premiums.
SLIPPERY SLOPE:
Also by privatizing Medicare for these few people, you open the door for more privatizations in the future. In the future the enemies of Medicare will try to lower the income eligibility threshold to kick more people off. Or they will try to raise the eligibility age for other groups, based on other qualifications.
The very wealthy (1%) do not need Medicare at all. But by them being in the risk pool and paying premiums it benefits everybody.