Medicare Buy-In Could Offer More Affordable Healthcare Coverage to Older Adults

A RAND Corporation study found making Medicare available to Americans aged 50 to 64 would reduce their healthcare premium but hike costs for younger people who buy health insurance on exchanges established under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), reports News-Medical . RAND estimates that the premium to purchase Medicare would be about $10,000 annually in 2022, which is a good deal for many prospective enrollees compared to the ACA-compliant individual insurance market in which older adults are charged up to three times as much as younger adults. Older adults' care is generally less costly relative to their high premiums, while younger people in the exchange tend to be less healthy and their care is more expensive than the premiums they pay. Consequently, enabling adults 50 to 64 to move to Medicare could boost premiums for those remaining in the individual health insurance market by 3 percent to 9 percent. Moreover, this would not significantly impact the number of Americans with health insurance.