A range of plans and studies proposing ways to stave off the insolvency of Medicare, the nation’s primary health care program for seniors and disabled adults, have been published.
Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund reserves are projected to be exhausted by 2028, according to the 2022 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds. By 2028, payroll taxes and other revenues will cover only 90 percent of Medicare HI costs.
Top scholars and policy experts have come together with solutions to Medicare’s biggest challenges from a free market approach, culminating in a book titled Modernizing Medicare: Harnessing the Power of Consumer Choice and Market Competition, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in April.
In addition, new papers from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) discuss fixing Medicare by addressing payments to doctors.
Making Medicare Competitive
Medicare’s biggest issue is lack of competition, says Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at the Center for Health and Welfare Policy at The Heritage Foundation and co-editor, with colleague Marie Fishpaw, of Modernizing Medicare.
