Medicare Buy-in: A High-Level Overview of Considerations

With healthcare costs on the rise in all markets, and uncertainty in ACA markets, legislators are looking for ways to make health coverage more accessible and more affordable to the general population. In the current commercial market, premiums are community rated and the younger, healthier populations are subsidizing the premium of the older, sicker population. In order to reduce premiums, one potential solution that has been proposed is to allow members between the ages of 55 and 64 to Buy-in to Medicare. Under traditional Medicare, members are eligible to receive benefits from the program beginning at age 65. This concept has been floated around political circles but specifics on how such a program would work have not been advanced yet. In this paper, we explore some ideas and unanswered questions on how Medicare Buy-In might work and some key considerations that should be fleshed out.

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