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No Savings from Raising Medicare Age

The Congressional Budget Office released an issue brief Tuesday that suggested lifting Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67 would save the federal government 5 percent on projected outlays over the next decade, and only “a small share of those people would end up without health insurance.” The idea has been touted by numerous deficit reduction proposals, including those from Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Alice Rivlin, the former CBO director.

It’s a bad idea, says Aaron Carroll, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and director of its Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research. “No one should be under the illusion that the federal government will save money by raising the Medicare eligibility age,” he said in an interview after attacking the report on The Incidental Economist website, which is widely read by health policy researchers and analysts.

First, it’s a cost-shifting plan, not a cost-cutting plan, he pointed out. “Someone has to pay for the health care of those older workers.”

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