BLOGGER VS. BLOGGER: The Buzz Over Raising Medicare Eligibility

Although Republicans and Democrats still face significant challenges in reaching a deal that would avert the looming mandated spending cuts under sequestration, senior aides familiar with the ongoing negotiations say the essential elements of an eventual deal are coming into focus, the Washington Post reports.

According to the Post, a compromise could include raising the top tax rate to no greater than 39.6% or shifting the target population from those making $250,000 annually — as President Obama has proposed — to those earning more than $375,000 annually. Meanwhile, Democrats would agree to some “high-profile” cuts in entitlements, such as an increase in the Medicare eligibility age to 67.

Jonathan Chait blogged in New York Magazine‘s “Daily Intelligencer” that although the policy might not make the “most sense, raising the Medicare age seems like a sensible bone to throw the right.” He argued that raising the Medicare eligibility age holds “weirdly disproportionate symbolic power” among Republicans. Further, 65- and 66-year olds no longer covered by Medicare would still be covered by the Affordable Care Act, plus they would add to the constituency against the GOP’s efforts to repeal the law.

In a direct response to Chait’s blog, Joan Walsh wrote for Salon that raising the Medicare eligibility age “doesn’t save money; it’s a shell game that just pushes costs around.” There is no guarantee that insurance subsidies will exist for 65- and 66-year-olds, and the absence of relatively healthy seniors from the program will increase Medicare costs, she wrote. “The most likely scenario is that seniors will bear the cost of insurance themselves – or go without insurance entirely,” Walsh noted.

OUR TAKE: We do not elect representatives to make “symbolic” points; rather, we vote for individuals who we believe best represent our interests. Hiking the Medicare eligibility age is not in our interests because it would not result in significant savings, but would lead to more uninsured seniors, according to a study released today by the Center for American Progress. GOP state lawmakers’ resistance to the ACA’s Medicaid expansion could leave as many as 435,000 seniors without insurance in 2021.

— by Hanna Jaquith, staff writer