Lowering age for Medicare not good move
Thwarted in his original health-care reform initiative, President Clinton has been assiduously trying to pass that grandiose scheme piecemeal. A key piece will be unveiled in his 1999 budget: lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 62.
The White House, which has remained quietly fixed on its goal of universal health insurance, would have liked to lower the age of eligibility even further, to 55, but gave up for the time being because of cost.
The change, from 65 to 62, sounds incremental, but extending Medicare to able-bodied working people younger than 65 would breach a parameter that has stood since the program was created in 1965.
Once that precedent was broken, the political pressure to expand Medicare might prove irresistible.
Putting aside all other arguments pro and con, we simply cannot afford it.
Going bankrupt
Last year's budget agreement only bought 10 years' time before Medicare goes bankrupt. A bipartisan commission to come up with long-term solutions for Medicare has yet to get off the ground.
The White House says the expanded Medicare would be self-financing because the new enrollees would be charged $300 to $400 a month for the coverage.
Medicare's history is rife with estimates that have proved wildly unrealistic, and this promise of self-financing seems to be one more in that embarrassing tradition. At that price, Medicare would be cheaper than private health insurance.
The reaction of the Republican leadership has been -- correctly -- to say that Medicare should not be expanded until the problems of the existing system have been solved.
But President Clinton has so badly burned the Republicans on the Medicare issue that this latest proposal may win support without the critical scrutiny it deserves.
If the proposal does get that scrutiny, Congress will find that lowering the age for Medicare eligibility is unaffordable.