In deficit reduction debate, some stakeholders point to Medicare

The American Hospital Association is lobbying to raise the program's eligibility age from 65 to 67 as a means of heading off additional cuts to Medicare hospital payments. Meanwhile, some conservatives view the program's fiscal challenges as the problem that stands above all others.

Politico:  Medicare Eligibility Age Should Go Up, Hospitals Say
The American Hospital Association has a strategy for heading off any more Medicare payment cuts: Tell Congress to get the money from Medicare beneficiaries instead. The association is urging its nearly 5,000 members to lobby Congress to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, in addition to other money-saving alternatives, according to spokeswoman Marie Watteau (Jaffe, 9/8).

Politico: Conservative Wonks: Talk Medicare
To conservative policy hands, one fiscal and policy problem stands well above virtually all others: Medicare. The federal health care program figures hugely in two crucial issues for whomever is sworn in as president in January 2013: it's the key force driving a widening deficit in the years to come and taming it is the necessary first step in a broad campaign of entitlement reform (Smith and Schultheis, 9/8).