Medicare Privatization Pros and Cons
One of the main concerns of citizens is accessible Medicare; our health should always be the first priority
above anything. The proposed changes in Medicare can have a number of pros and cons for the common citizen specifically the old and the disabled. To begin with, if Medicare is privatized, it will change how Medicare pays for benefits, currently Medicare pays for benefits in two ways, through the federal government to the health providers and secondly the federal government pays a pre-determined amount for each service received by the citizens. A pro of this change is that it puts Medicare on a budget to reduce taxes and hold down on their spending. (Cabriel, 2014) For instance, your pay the premium cost from your own pocket and the con of this change is that the value of the voucher is not strictly attached to the actual healthcare costs, but economic indexes which are not related. Secondly, privatization of healthcare will raise medical eligibility to 67 years from the normal 65 which excluded the younger disabled individuals years. A pro of this change is that old people will continue to live longer and healthcare expenditure rise continuously. Raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 reduces Medicare expenditure on the federal government. On the other side, the cons of this change will see increase in other medical spending such as employer health plans, adults who are not insured will pay full cost and Medicare premium increase with a few adults sharing the cost.
Privatization of Medicare also proposes increase in medical payroll tax, pros of this change is that increasing the payroll tax by 5% for employers and employees will cover the unfinished projects in the Medicare. Cons of this change is that it will increase taxes on the working Americans and the future generations to come. (Mahoney, 2014) The privatization will see increase in medical premiums for high-income earners, the pros for this change is that, it’s in order for a common citizen to see the increase in medical premium for high-income earners, the cons of this change is that the high-income earners already pays a lot to the Medicare system.
References;
Cabriel, M., Geruso, M., Mahoney, N & National Bureau of Economic Research. (2014)