Raising medicare eligibility age would be 100% political [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Let's say, hypothetically, that some fiscal reality absolutely required cutting medicare.

On the one hand, we could reduce what medicare offers. On the other hand, we could prevent people 65-67 from being on medicare.

If our interest was helping people and keeping our national word we would (in the hypothetical situation where some reduction is required) reduce whatever benefits were least vital.

But that would be a reduction of benefits for people who are in medicare. And people who have something they already have reduced will complain.

So instead we think in terms of cutting benefits 100% for people 65-67... eliminating benefits entirely for that group, but eliminating benefits they have never received.

And politically we, as a nation, could say, "We didn't reduce anyone's benefits."

But maintaining benefits for people already in the system is not a health care decision at all. It's a political decision. With health care, a 100% reduction for one person is probably worse than a 10% reduction for ten people, in terms of outcomes.

So it is pure politics. Better to piss off one person than ten people... even if the one person ends up dead. Heck, dead people don't vote anyway.

There is no way that an arbitrary blunt instrument like denying benefits to all persons 65-67 is the best public health approach to a hypothetical budget shortfall.