The First of the baby boomers that qualify for Medicare in 2011 are worried.
A recent survey shows deep concern about whether or not, throughout their retirement, they can depend on a health insurance plan ran by the government. Poll sources say 43% of Americans born on 1946 to 1964 don’t expect to rely on Medicare perpetually while 20% feel that their Medicare is safe and the other 37% percent have mixed thoughts.
Sources state that 63% of the baby boomers voted for dismissal of the idea of increasing the eligibility age. But when asked to choose between keeping the fixed age but cutting the benefit and raising the age and keeping the benefits 59% voted for increasing the eligibility age.
An example would be the Medicare qualifying age issue, it is fixed at 65 while the required age for Social Security is slowly rising and is now up to 67 year old.
Medicare covers a total of 46 million disabled and elderly people, with a total cost of $500 billion annually.
The American way of practicing medicine is too expensive and is pushing finances to the limit.
In about 20 years, the last baby boomer will have turned 65 by that time Medicare will be covering 80
million people and the ratio of people who pay taxes that fund this program will decrease to 2.3 from 3.5, causing a huge imbalance in the structure.
Some republicans and a few democrats have suggested stopping Medicare and giving retirees a voucher or a fixed payment to help them pay for private health insurance. Overall, 51% of the people contested the idea, 41 – 47% of the people born after 1980 favored it and 43% of the seniors strongly contested the idea, poll sources reported.
An idea that didn’t involve a complete overhaul of Medicare had better chances in the survey. The idea of raising Medicare taxes and keeping the benefits fared better in the polls.
