The Medicare Time Bomb: Can Washington Defuse It?

A vestige of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”, the federal Medicare healthcare program has expanded in ways its architects perhaps didn’t foresee – a growing constituency (nearly 70 million elderly Americans now rely on Medicare for their healthcare needs, with that number climbing as more Americans reach their golden years) and senior healthcare occupying a growing chunk of the federal budget (Medicare now accounting for one in every seven dollars Washington spends). With the entitlement going bankrupt as soon as 2033, what reforms can “rescue” Medicare – not to mention Social Security, which could run out of funding as soon as 2032? Tom Church, a Hoover policy fellow who’s done considerable research on entitlement and healthcare reform, discusses why Medicare reform went nowhere a decade ago, policy avenues for driving down costs, plus limitations imposed by the current political lineup in Washington – a Republican president famously averse to entitlement reform and an opposition party championing a single-payer “Medicare for All” alternative, suggesting the looming crisis will be tabled until 2029 or later. Also discussed: Church’s work with Hoover’s ambitious and bipartisan Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy. 

RELATED SOURCES

• The Choices for All Project – Healthcare Reforms for the Future by Lanhee Chen, Tom Church, and Daniel Heil
• Refocusing Medicare Reform on Its Cost to Taxpayers
• For Medicare, Trust Fund Solvency Is the Wrong Number to Focus On by Tom Church
• The 2026 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds
• The High Cost of Good Intentions
• Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy