According to the report, nearly half of Medicare recipients have incomes at or below 200 percent of poverty, defined as $21,780 for an individual and $29,420 for a family. This pool of low-income recipients could suffer if Medicare shifts more cost onto its beneficiaries, one of the proposed solutions to reducing the program’s 15 percent share of the federal budget.
For example, the Republican plan, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and passed by the House in April, would reduce Medicare spending by placing a cap on federal contributions to the program. Instead, the system would grant seniors “premium supports” to partially subsidize their purchase of private insurance plans, more than doubling out-of-pocket healthcare spending by the average senior every year.
According to the report, many Medicare beneficiaries are not in a position to accept an increased financial burden. Only 5 percent of recipients have incomes of $80,000 or above, either individually or with their spouse’s income included. The 47 percent that are near the poverty line are spending approximately one-fourth of their budgets on healthcare.
Read the Washington Post report on Medicare.
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