Medicare solvency roundtable: insights from leading experts to keep Medicare on solid financial ground
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Garrett, Bowen, author Shartzer, Adele, author Arnos, Diane, author
- Contributor(s):
- Urban Institute, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Washington, DC : Urban Institute, August 2021
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Bankruptcy -- legislation & jurisprudence Medicare -- economics United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, which pays for hospital and most institutional services under Medicare Part A, will be depleted in 2027. Should this occur, full payments to providers for services covered under Part A would be delayed, which could ultimately harm the level of care patients receive. From 2022 to 2031, HI Trust Fund revenues are projected to fall $494 billion short of spending. In addition, the attention the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on health disparities has raised questions about how Medicare should be structured to support equitable outcomes by race and ethnicity. The Urban Institute convened a panel of national experts in March 2021 to discuss policy options to address the solvency of Medicare’s Part A trust fund. This brief summarizes findings from that discussion, followed by some of the panelists’ comments for each of the options considered. Several areas of agreement about potential pathways emerged. These included addressing service areas, such as post-acute care (PAC) and Medicare Advantage (MA), where Medicare payments have historically been relatively high compared with providers’ costs. In addition, reforming the way in which Medicare supports graduate medical education and reducing the level of support to more justifiable levels could help address solvency issues and achieve other policy objectives, such as supporting the development of a more adequate primary care workforce. Panelists also discussed several options with varying levels of support that would generate savings from prescription drugs along with several other options involving transferring savings from other components of Medicare or from the broader budget into the Part A trust fund.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (24 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918300287906676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918300287906676