A Huge Threat to the U.S. Budget Has Receded. And No One Is Sure Why.

iluvatar5150 · Sep 5, 2023

A Huge Threat to the U.S. Budget Has Receded. And No One Is Sure Why. (Published 2023)

Instead of growing and growing, as it always had, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade.

www.nytimes.com

For decades, runaway Medicare spending was the story of the federal budget. Now, flat Medicare spending might be a bigger one.

The reason for the per-person slowdown is a bit of a mystery. Scholars have been arguing about it for years, but no one seems sure enough to confidently predict whether it is likely to stick around for much longer.

Some of the reductions are easy to explain. Congress changed Medicare policy. The biggest such shift came with the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which reduced Medicare’s payments to hospitals and to health insurers that offered private Medicare Advantage plans. Congress also cut Medicare payments as part of a budget deal in 2011.

But most of the savings can’t be attributed to any obvious policy shift. In a recent letter to the Senate Budget Committee, economists at the Congressional Budget Office described the huge reductions in its Medicare forecasts between 2010 and 2020. Most of those reductions came from a category the budget office calls “technical adjustments,” which it uses to describe changes to public health and the practice of medicine itself.

Pommer · Sep 5, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
A Huge Threat to the U.S. Budget Has Receded. And No One Is Sure Why. (Published 2023)

Instead of growing and growing, as it always had, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade.

www.nytimes.com

View attachment 335718

All those seniors who died of the Coronavirus depressed the curve?

iluvatar5150 · Sep 5, 2023

Pommer said:
All those seniors who died of the Coronavirus depressed the curve?

That was probably a factor, but the phenomenon started nearly a decade earlier.

Pommer · Sep 5, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
That was probably a factor, but the phenomenon started nearly a decade earlier.

Oh!? Like when ~~ObamaCare~~ the PPACA took effect?
What a coincidence!

iluvatar5150 · Sep 5, 2023

Pommer said:
Oh!? Like when ~~ObamaCare~~ the PPACA took effect?
What a coincidence!

Who knew those death panels would be so cost effective?

Always in His Presence · Sep 6, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
Who knew those death panels would be so cost effective?

Death does end up in lower cost - good point

FireDragon76 · Sep 6, 2023

It could be due to increasing mortality of Baby Boomers and older Gen-X'ers due to "deaths of despair"? Just a guess. Somebody that dies early isn't going to ever draw on the trust fund.

Pommer · Sep 6, 2023

FireDragon76 said:
It could be due to increasing mortality of Baby Boomers and older Gen-X'ers due to "deaths of despair"? Just a guess. Somebody that dies early isn't going to ever draw on the trust fund.

Like a tontine?

A Huge Threat to the U.S. Budget Has Receded. And No One Is Sure Why.

iluvatar5150

Well-Known Member