title: Catastrophic health insurance for the elderly.
abstract: Recent proposals to provide catastrophic healthcare benefits to the elderly under Medicare are flawed by their compulsory nature of premium payments and the granting of a monopoly to the federal government to underwrite such coverage. Additionally, current Medicare policy provides an inherent subsidy to Medigap insurance reducing the incentive to purchase private catastrophic coverage. Other options include paying for such coverage by increasing copayments or increasing private Medigap coverage. The public policy implications of these proposals are discussed.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002388:Catastrophic Illness / Q000191:economics*; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007354:Insurance, Major Medical / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006278:Medicare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014481:United States