How the Total Program of Medicare Works and Is Paid For

[GailL1]

Great Resource if you want to understand it and why it is the way it is -

Before any suggestions on how to change it - learning how it works now may open some incite into where and how it can be changed to improve or change it.

Overall, the question is would you pay more for what you may want?

KFF.org - 05/28/2024. - MEDICARE 101 

From the link

Future Outlook

Copy link to Future Outlook

Looking to the future, Medicare faces a number of challenges from the perspective of beneficiaries, health care providers and private plans, and the federal budget. These include:

• How best to address the fiscal challenges arising from an aging population and increasing health care costs through spending reductions and/or revenue increases.
• Whether and how to improve coverage for Medicare beneficiaries, including an out-of-pocket limit in traditional Medicare, enhanced financial support for lower-income beneficiaries, and additional benefits, such as dental and vision.
• How to control spending while ensuring fair and adequate payments to hospitals, physicians and other providers, and Medicare Advantage plans, including whether and how to reduce overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans.
• How to address the implications for traditional Medicare of rapid growth in Medicare Advantage enrollment.

Consideration of possible changes to Medicare will involve careful deliberation about the potential implications for federal spending and taxpayers, the solvency of the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund, total health care spending, the affordability of health care for Medicare’s growing number of beneficiaries, many of whom have limited incomes, and access to high-quality medical care.

[FayS290121]

From Center for Medicare Advocacy:

https://medicareadvocacy.org/ongoing-medicare-advantage-overpayments-and-barriers-to-care/

[FayS290121]

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/ending-overpayment-in-medicare-advantage/