Philadelphia Reflections

The musings of a physician who has served the community for over six decades

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New topic 2019-05-24 20:49:32 description

Medicare Buy-Out

Could Americans buy their way out of Medicare? Right now, no. In a few years, probably yes. A Medicare buy-out would have a few special complications. The transition to it might take thirty or more years, in view of the several ways it raises revenue and the varying ages of the patients involved. For example, from the time an individual starts his first job, until the age of 66, he is sustaining payroll deductions for future Medicare coverage. Also, from the age of 66 until he dies, he has Medicare premiums deducted from his Social Security payments. Each of these compartments aggregates about a quarter of the cost of the program, and the two methods keep more or less in balance over a lifetime, eventually paying half its cost.

The other half of the Medicare program cost is supplied through general tax sources, as a subsidy, and could continue to build up indefinitely. Eventually, an undeterminable portion of the subsidy is borrowed internationally, and that debt, like a credit-card balance, draws continuous interest. The Economist reports it would be more advantageous for the Chinese to buy American common stock. But using that approach, they would now own a fifth of the major corporations of America, which is politically unacceptable. Therefore, they bought American Treasury bonds. Depending on maturity, these bonds will eventually come due and must then be redeemed or refinanced. This arrangement can only continue with mutual consent of the two nations, and currently, the Chinese economy is shaky.

Moreover, it cannot be said the two funds will keep in balance. That's essentially true in bulk, but the actual revenue for each age cohort is largely based on its historical birth rate. Payroll deductions for the baby boom bulge have reached a peak and are about to decline to zero, whereas the Medicare premium bulge is just beginning, along with benefit payments. These repeated imbalances could prove troublesome to fund.

I wish I believed these receipts had been put into a bank vault, but in fact, they were likely co-mingled for general government expenses and spent long ago. Whether or not they are represented by accountants as paying for part of future Medicare expenses, or for current bridges and battleships, they are going to make a problem when the boomer bulge catches up with them. The formula will remain unchanged, but the proportion of payroll deduction will fall because the Millennial generation is fewer than the boomer generation, who are in turn more numerous than their parents as consumers of Medicare funds. The Treasury would certainly be concerned about any proposal to accelerate the payout to help a Medicare buyout. And even if an exchange of health funding is agreed to, the accounting problem of determining millions of balances of differing size is sure to be a headache. The balance in question is the net of 6.5%, less the rate on Treasury bonds, which could be either a positive balance or a negative one if the bond market and the stock market do not move in parallel. The unpredictability of markets is amply illustrated at present, when trillions of freshly printed bonds do not cause inflation, even for the mundane purpose of maintaining a stable currency. Even inflation targeting does not work as desired, currently reaching 1.5% when the Federal Reserve is trying to reach 2%.

In the longer run, Medicare buy-outs by the grandchild approach would stretch available funds over a longer time span, and augment them somewhat. Longevity is increasing, but the period of working life is not. People are retiring earlier, and they are entering the workforce later in life. Progressive taxation further reduces what working people have left over to spend, and eventually will make them less willing to support the protracted vacations of their children and their parents. So extra investment income will be needed, and shifting other savings around will probably relieve some of the pressure. Even so, it appears certain some elderly people will outlive their savings and must find a way to generate income with their leisure time. Along the same lines, we must also change the mentality of those who regard employment as a punishment to be avoided, but that is not my present topic. One small advantage of the unemployed Millennials is they are less likely to resist working long after they do get a job.

Summary of One Scheme of Medicare Buyout. Childhood health insurance, funded through health insurance for senior citizens. Owned by two people linked by redefining a birthday or some other strategy, all sounds like a peculiar idea. But let me persuade you to do a little math. At 7%, there are 9 doublings in a 90-year life. 2,4,8,16,32, 64, 128, 256, 512. That's rounding up on 6.5% and 85 years, which are closer to realistic estimates of future longevity and interest rate return, but no one can predict. Every dollar at birth (now redefined financially as the 21st birthday) is multiplied 289 times (the approximation process suggested 512). The grandparent aged 40 would have to add $450 to a sinking fund, and a grandparent aged 65 would have to contribute $27,000 to pay it in advance. Eventually, when things settle down and we have added four doublings, the contribution would be $42+ a person, so considerable juggling would be useful for a few years to smooth it out fairly.

Let's aim for $200 a year for five or ten years for everybody over age 40 or something of that nature. To pay for Medicare coverage, that's amazingly cheap. That's a rough estimate, of course. The overall effect is for the child to wear down his gift from grandpa from birth to age 21, paying $42+ at age 40 to support his own grandchild. He pays for his own care from age 21 to 66. During the transition, a late starter would pay $200 a year for several years after age 40 to make up for his late start, and others would pay the same, but starting later. There are a hundred ways to do this, and the choice would be for the most palatable appearance. We have other, possibly more acceptable, approaches, but this one links well with other goals.

Proposal 22: Congress should enable one voluntary transfer between the Health Savings Accounts of members of the same family, especially grandparents and grandchildren, or one transfer to a general pool for atypical families. Members of the grandparent generation who have no grandchildren may choose one substitute from outside the family, or leave the decision to the fund.

Proposal 23: Congress should permit voluntary buy-outs from the Medicare program, which include consideration of returning payroll deductions, and fair accounting for premiums, copayments and benefits already paid for by age groups in transition; but make little effort to encourage buyouts, until prices start to fall.

All in all, the conclusion of this analysis is that targeted programs are probably better for the thirty million people with special needs, so universal one-size-fits-all is probably not a good goal. Privatizing Medicare is a good goal, but we may not be quite ready for it. What's left is to fund the healthcare of children, by mildly overfunding the healthcare of seniors. That ought to end the discussion of this topic, except for demonstrating how you would control the money machine, exposed by the lack of gold or other standards for the currency. It's done by bringing balances to zero once in a while, and it was uncovered by working around the grandparent-grandchild transfer. By studying what's left, we reach the conclusion that fixing the children problem would do the most good for the least cost, and just about everything else has major disadvantages.

Let us then do this much without waiting to see what Obamacare is going to do. If the Federal Reserve's inflation targeting serves the purpose, this may be held in reserve, but the failure of Keynesians to reach 2% inflation when they try to inflate on purpose, should make everyone uneasy about their approach in a currency system which depends on printing money until short-term interest rates rise to 2%. As the man in the audience called out, "Haven't you been to the grocery store, lately?"

Originally published: Monday, June 29, 2015; most-recently modified: Thursday, May 23, 2019