The Alliance for Health Reform hosted a panel discussion on Medicare spending and the proposal to raise the eligibility age from 65 to 67, in order to rein in costs.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this change would save $113 billion over the next decade. The CBO assumes that most people would gain health insurance through other sources, either by retiring later and maintaining their employer-based health insurance, or on the open market.
Juliette Cubanski, associate director for the Program on Medicare Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation; Gail Wilensky, senior fellow at Project HOPE, and a former Medicare and Medicaid administrator; David Certner, federal policy director at AARP, who previously served as chairman of the ERISA Advisory Council at the Department of Labor; and Paul Dennett, senior vice president for health reform at the American Benefits Council, which represents Fortune 500 companies, and a congressional staff veteran; discussed the costs and benefits of raising the eligibility age.
Ed Howard of the Alliance and Tricia Neuman of Kaiser co-moderated the discussion.