Study finds Medicare changes would impose additional costs on majority of 'healthy' beneficiaries

The study, released Tuesday, was done by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

The Wall Street Journal: Medicare Costs: More Or Less?
Several deficit-reduction committees have suggested changing the federal health-care program for seniors to combine the hospital- and doctor-services deductibles that participants currently pay separately. In this system, seniors could have a $550 annual deductible, and be required to pay 20 percent toward all services up to a $5,550 annual limit. But the change would mean that around three quarters of current beneficiaries would pay more -; on average around $180 a year more -; according to models created by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. About 5 percent of current beneficiaries who use hospital services most frequently would see a significant decrease in the amount they have to pay -; around $1,570 a year. The rest of the beneficiaries wouldn't experience any change, the study found (Radnofsky, 11/15). (KHN is an editorially independent  program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Revamp Could Hit 'Modest Users': Study
A restructured Medicare benefit design with a new limit on beneficiary cost-sharing could produce savings and help some, but also could impose additional costs on a majority of program beneficiaries who are relatively healthy and "modest users" of medical care, says a new study from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (Zigmond, 11/15).

Roll Call: Means Testing May Be Coburn's Next Big Fight
After a successful campaign of shaming Congress to take a break from earmarks, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has turned his focus to aid received by millionaires, and he hopes it will lead to means testing for Social Security and Medicare. "It is a new way to make the case for means testing, not just for Social Security but [also] Medicare," said an aide in Coburn's office. "This isn't class warfare. It's classy warfare." Indeed, Coburn is using much the same strategy he used to go after "pork-barrel spending": reports with catchy names and seemingly outrageous examples of government waste. This time it's "Subsidies of the Rich and Famous," which highlights the whopping $9 billion in retirement payments people who make more than $1 million a year get from the federal government (Sanchez, 11/16).