Medicare Reform: Are There Realistic Alternatives to a Jeb Bush “Phaseout”?
(By – Dan Caplinger, www.fool.com)
Almost 54 million Americans rely on Medicare coverage to cover the majority of their healthcare costs, with most of them age 65 or older and living on a fixed income from Social Security and their life savings. It’s therefore not surprising that comments from presidential candidate Jeb Bush last month about the future of Medicare restarted a debate that has been going on for decades over the best way to deal with major challenges ahead for the healthcare program. Yet even though calls to “phase out” Medicare entirely are unlikely to survive the political process, the bigger question is how policymakers and legislators should approach Medicare reform in a way that both preserves benefits for current recipients and protects future participants in a financially viable manner. Read more…