Paul Krugman ...

"We don’t have a Medicare problem — we have a health care problem."

Medicare versus insurers

I notice from comments that a fair number of readers think that Medicare has had runaway costs. What you need to ask is, runaway compared to what?

Here’s the raw fact, from the National Health Expenditure data: since 1970 Medicare costs per beneficiary have risen at an annual rate of 8.8% — but insurance premiums have risen at an annual rate of 9.9%. The rise in Medicare costs is just part of the overall rise in health care spending. And in fact Medicare spending has lagged private spending: if insurance premiums had risen “only” as much as Medicare spending, they’d be 1/3 lower than they are.

Of course rates go up when expenses increase. The idea is to cut expenses and eliminate the cheats which are the providers who are double billing and charging more for test and proceedures.

I'm on Medicare and my rate has gone up each year since I've had it. The next to years my Social Security will remain the same, no cost of living increase but my monthly will be lower because Medicare will go up. Which means Medigap insurance which covers "some" of the 20% that medicare doesn't pay will also go up.

If Health Care is fixed, it will also help Medicare.