July 15th, 2011

Los Angeles Times reports:

The heated debate over the federal deficit has pumped new life into controversial proposals for requiring Americans on Medicare to pay more for their healthcare, raising the possibility that seniors’ medical bills could jump hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

It remains unclear if any of the proposals, which congressional Republicans have demanded to cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget, will be enacted this year, given the continued stalemate over government spending.

But the ideas, once considered politically toxic, have gained enough traction that many in Washington expect them to resurface, if not now, then after the 2012 election.

“Over the long haul, beneficiaries will have to pay more and taxpayers will have to pay more,” said Henry Aaron, a longtime healthcare expert at the Brookings Institution. “It’s just too darn expensive.”

That could mean higher co-pays, higher deductibles or higher premiums for many seniors.

Though the elderly are much better off financially than they were when Medicare was enacted, half of seniors subsist on incomes below $22,000 a year.

Raising costs for consumers would also represent a substantial shift in how the federal government has provided health insurance to the elderly for the last half century.

Since Medicare’s creation in 1965, presidents and members of Congress from both parties have largely avoided transferring costs to seniors. Though the program began charging high-income seniors higher Medicare premiums in 2003, Washington leaders have mainly sought to control Medicare costs by regulating the amounts that hospitals, doctors and other providers could charge — a strategy employed again in the healthcare overhaul that President Obama signed last year.

For more on the story, read the Los Angeles Times