Search Results
Working Paper
Demographics and medical care spending: standard and non-standard effects
In this paper, we examine the effects of likely demographic changes on medical spending for the elderly. Standard forecasts highlight the potential for greater life expectancy to increase costs: medical costs generally increase with age, and greater life expectancy means that more of the elderly will be in the older age groups. Two factors work in the other direction, however. First, increases in life expectancy mean that a smaller share of the elderly will be in the last year of life, when medical costs generally are very high. Furthermore, more of the elderly will be dying at older ages, ...
Working Paper
Generational aspects of Medicare
This paper examines the generational aspect of the current Medicare system and some stylized reforms. We find that the rates of return on Medicare for today's workers are higher than those for Social Security and that the Medicare system is shifting a greater share of the burden on future workers than is Social Security. Nonetheless, the rates of return on Medicare, using the Medicare Trustees assumptions, are still not that high--roughly 2 percent for today's youngest workers. But forecasting future Medicare expenditures is quite difficult. Under an alternative higher-cost baseline, which we ...
Newsletter
New perspectives on health and health care policy
Health care reform has been the primary focus of policymakers for much of the past year, culminating with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010. The vigorous national debate on the act has highlighted the importance of innovative, high-quality research on health and health care policy.
Journal Article
Social Security and Medicare : the impending fiscal challenge
Social Security?and the solvency of its Trust Fund?have increasingly become a focus of discussion in the media and policy circles. The basic problem is that promised benefits will soon exceed program revenues. Without changes in benefits or funding, the Trustees of Social Security project that assets in the Trust Fund will be depleted in 2041. While Social Security is a serious problem for taxpayers and beneficiaries, Medicare poses an even greater challenge. Together, the two programs? benefits currently amount to about 6 percent of GDP. By 2080 they are projected to swell to 20 percent. ...
Journal Article
Enhancing future retirement income through 401(k)s
With too many retirees and too few funds expected, the future of the country's social security and medicare programs is likely to be in peril. Can 401(k)s save the day?
Report
An Aggregate Model for Policy Analysis with Demographic Change
Many countries are facing challenging fiscal financing issues as their populations age and the number of workers per retiree falls. Policymakers need transparent and robust analyses of alternative policies to deal with demographic changes. In this paper, we propose a simple framework that can easily be matched to aggregate data from the national accounts. We demonstrate the usefulness of our framework by comparing quantitative results for our aggregate model with those of a related model that includes within-age-cohort heterogeneity through productivity differences. When we assess proposals ...
Journal Article
Medicare: usual and customary remedies will no longer work
A description of the structural deficiencies that have led to Medicare's impending bankruptcy, and a discussion of the merits of alternative approaches to extending the program's long-term viability. The author argues that the best approach is to adopt a "defined contribution" plan that will restore consumers' interest in economizing on health care services and boost competition among providers and insurers.
Journal Article
The future of Medicare and Social Security : future funding of both programs 'woefully inadequate'
The cost of Medicare benefits will soon exceed the program's available funds, and its financial woes will far surpass Social Security's as healthcare costs continue to rise faster than economic growth.