“SAVE AND STRENGTHEN MEDICARE ACT” INTRODUCED
On December 11, the outgoing chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee introduced a bill (the “Save and Strengthen Medicare Act,” H.R. 6645) that proposes major changes to the Medicare program. Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA), who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year, said that the bill “embrace[s] the best ideas that have been put on the table to date, from any political or ideological quarter.”

The bill includes several proposals. Perhaps the most controversial is the concept of premium support, in which Medicare beneficiaries would receive subsidies from the federal government to buy private health insurance. Some previous such proposals have been criticized as “voucher programs” that would shift insurance costs to Medicare beneficiaries; Rep. Herger’s bill, however, would permit beneficiaries to choose to remain in traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

The bill proposes establishing incentives for people to delay enrolling in Medicare, through higher premiums for those under the “preferred Medicare age” (which will gradually be raised) and payroll tax breaks for those who delay retirement beyond age 65. The bill also proposes repealing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). As it currently exists, the IPAB empowers the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to unilaterally implement the IPAB’s recommendations on reductions to Medicare payments if Congress fails to do so.

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