September 15th, 2011

Reports Bloomberg today:

A congressional panel negotiating U.S. spending cuts should raise the age when people become eligible for Medicare to 67 from 65, a group representing health-care chief executives said today.

The Washington-based Healthcare Leadership Council included the recommendation in four proposals it said would save $410 billion in a decade, along with having private health plans to cover additional Medicare recipients and make people earning more than $150,000 pay for the full cost of the program’s premiums. Pfizer Inc. (PFE) and Merck & Co., the two largest U.S. drugmakers by revenue, are members of the council.

“This supercommittee process is a unique opportunity to do more than simply chop away at budgets,” Mary Grealy, the group’s president, said in a statement, referring to the 12- member congressional debt panel. The council called for overhauling the legal liability system for medical providers.

Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly and disabled, currently covers 47 million people and spends $519 billion a year, according to the Menlo Park, California-based Kasier Family Foundation.

Find out more, including what hospitals think of the proposal, at Bloomberg and Kaiser Network News.