One proposal to expand health insurance is to let people who are older buy into medicare. Some put the age at 50, 55 or 60, but basically letting people above a certain age (usually 55) buy into medicare.
Are there studies that determine how much this will cost in public funds?
Medicare has premiums (Medicare A, Medicare D, medigap) that the person would still have to buy, so that’ll cost $200-400/month for premiums.
This link is kind of old so I’m sure its more now, but in 2011 medicare was spending about $5000 per year for an enrollee who was around age 65.
Since medical costs go up with age, I’m guessing the costs may be closer to $3000 per year for someone in their 50s. But as a counterpoint, people with more serious illnesses may join the medicare program in their 50s which means higher costs.
But also people with subsidized ACA coverage would save the government some money if they switch to medicare. $4000 a year in medicare spending is much less than $10,000 a year in ACA subsidies to buy private insurance. But the ACA private market only covers 10 million people or so, so its not a huge number.
Point being, if it costs about 3-4k a year per new enrollee and 20 million people join, thats about 80 billion a year. Not a huge number, and there would be some cost savings as people move off of other public plans like subsidized ACA plans.
Has anyone done the math? I’m wondering if a medicare buy in option for people age 50+ would cost 50-100 billion a year or so assuming about 20 million people sign up for it.
According to this, medical spending for age 45-64 is about 60% of medical spending for those age 65+.
So if medicare was spending 10k per person age 65+ back in 2011, that would mean total medical spending was about 6k per capita for older middle aged people. But premiums, deductibles and copays would lower that figure. I’m guessing around $4k per new middle age enrollee is a good rough estimate per year.