Buh-bye.
More great Medicare spending news. Medicare spending isn't just
lower than experts predicted a few years ago. On a per-person basis,
Medicare spending is actually falling.
This year, Medicare, which covers those 65 and older and people with disabilities, will spend about $ 11,200 on average for every person enrolled in the program. By comparison, it spent $12,000 three years ago, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the number will fall below $11,000 by 2017 and stay below this year’s number until 2020. […]
The recent pattern reflects two main factors. One is that the baby boom generation is entering the program. In the long term, that’s a problem for Medicare’s finances because the number of people it must care for is going to surge. But in the short term, it skews the group enrolled in Medicare toward a younger, healthier population.
The second factor is more surprising and consequential. Over the last few years, Medicare patients have been using fewer expensive medical services, particularly hospital care and prescription drugs. The budget office is increasingly persuaded that such a pattern is going to last for a while.
Here's what's particularly significant in this: "Reductions made in the last four years alone are responsible for 10-year savings of more than $715 billion,
which dwarfs nearly every deficit-reduction measure currently under discussion." Take that, Paul Ryan.
Here's the thing. Medicare is going to be facing issues when the baby boom cohort gets older and sicker. But this trend in shrinking costs gives policymakers time to look at reforms that do not require benefit cuts, that don't require pain for Medicare patients. That means there's no reason for another Paul Ryan budget that slashes the safety net or for another catfood commission calling for raising the Medicare eligibility age or more cost-sharing by patients. Take note, Democrats, and stop with the deficit fetish already.