How would lowering the Medicare age save the system money?

[democrattotheend]

7. Please don't call me a Republican

I agree with you philosophically and personally. My parents are both self-employed and fall in that age bracket and pay through the nose for health insurance and I wish to g-d that they could buy into Medicare.

But I am trying to write a serious policy paper and I need to figure out how to argue that we can afford to lower the Medicare age given that Medicare's solvency is already in jeopardy. I agree that our system is a mess and it's a human problem, but I need to address the accounting problem in order to propose a viable solution. I cannot just say that it might exacerbate Medicare's funding problems but we should do it anyway because it's the right thing to do.

A big part of my paper is about how many people 55-65 are already getting squeezed out of the job market and that raising the Medicare age would make it worse. I want to propose that the system be changed so that Medicare becomes primary rather than secondary insurance for those over 65 who keep working, and I want to propose lowering the Medicare age in order to lower employers' costs of employing older workers and enable them to provide insurance more cheaply to workers under 55. But I can't figure out a way to pay for that without a significant hike in the payroll tax.

As a progressive who cares about preserving Medicare, I can't propose something that will exacerbate Medicare's funding woes and likely result in cuts to benefits. Anything that makes the Medicare trust fund less solvent will ultimately help Paul Ryan turn it into a voucher program.