title: Medicare means-testing: a skeptical view.
abstract: In response to claims that Medicare is unsustainable over time, Mark Pauly has suggested a means-testing approach as a solution to its financing problems. To obtain enough resources in this way, however, it is necessary to ask middle-class beneficiaries to pay much more for their health care, by subjecting them to vouchers. The spending limits Pauly suggests are arbitrary and would likely place an untenable burden on beneficiaries with modest incomes. A better approach to financing would be to examine the ability of both taxpayers and beneficiaries to pay in the future-likely resulting in a different outcome.
authors.affiliation: Health Program at American Institutes for Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. mmoon@air.org
authors.forename: Marilyn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moon
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005380:Financing, Government; D005382:Financing, Personal; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States