A premium support system for Medicare: updated analysis of illustrative options
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- United States. Congressional Budget Office, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, D.C. : Congressional Budget Office, October 2017
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Cost Sharing -- economics Medicare -- economics Budgets Cost Control -- methods Costs and Cost Analysis Fee-for-Service Plans Forecasting Health Care Reform -- economics Medicare -- trends Privatization -- economics Humans United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Over the past two decades, policymakers and analysts have advanced a variety of proposals for converting Medicare to a premium support system as a way to reduce federal spending. Under such a system, beneficiaries would choose health insurance from a list of competing plans, and the federal government would share the cost of their premiums. The proposals have differed in many respects, notably in the way that the federal contribution would be set and how that contribution might change over time. The Congressional Budget Office has in the past analyzed the budgetary effects of some illustrative options for a premium support system. This report updates the agency's work on the topic, presents new estimates of the budgetary effects of those options, and examines the reasons for the changes in the estimates, including changes in law that have affected the Medicare program. CBO constructed its estimates for this report under the assumption that the system would be implemented in 2022. Depending on their details, future cost estimates for legislative proposals that resemble the options analyzed in this report could differ substantially from the estimates presented here. In the options CBO analyzed, the federal government's contribution would be determined from insurers' bids, and Medicare's traditional fee-for-service (FFS) program would be included as a competing plan. CBO examined two approaches for determining the federal contribution: One would set the contribution on the basis of the second-lowest bid in each region; the other would use the region's average bid. CBO also examined the effects of grandfathering, which would keep beneficiaries in the current Medicare program if they were eligible for Medicare before the premium support system took effect instead of requiring all beneficiaries to enter the premium support system once it began.
- Copyright:
- The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (16 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101714413 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101714413