Panel: Expect major Medicare changes

As the first wave of 77 million baby boomers begins to retire in the year 2010, the federal Medicare program, as we know it, will have required a major facelift.

Congress, through the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, mandated that a cost-efficient Medicare program is to be operational within 10 years. It commissioned the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare to solicit public input and report back by March 1, 1999.

Because the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 will have reduced Medicare spending by $115 billion over the next five years, operational changes must take place, said Patricia Neuman, director of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Medicare Policy Project.

The changes could include trimming payments to providers, raising the age of Medicare eligibility, raising payroll taxes, or raising the premium for beneficiaries with higher incomes, Neuman said during a town hall meeting sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Nevada Monday night in Las Vegas.

"There is not a crisis facing Medicare now," Neuman said. "People and (insurance) providers like the program as it is, but the charges to finance baby boomers (at the present level) are bad."

Neuman was one of four panelists at the meeting, which was telecast from the Grant Sawyer State Office Building to locations in Carson City, Reno and Elko.

The panel that answered public concerns also consisted of: Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.; Bob Green, consultant to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; and Patsy Crawford-Waits, program director for the state's Medicare Information Counseling Program. Mary Liveratti, president of the League of Women Voters in Carson City, was the moderator.

While faced with the dilemma of maintaining current services under Medicare, Bryan said the commission must also come up with solutions to the public's demand to add prescription drugs and long-term care to the program.

One woman from Elko said people could travel to Mexico and purchase prescription drugs for considerably less than in this country. Bryan said he hoped to address that issue in Congress, adding that he thought some drug companies take advantage of consumers.

Another consumer from Carson City was angered that a lot of physicians there didn't accept Medicare patients. Neuman said she couldn't understand that because that went against the national norm, where 96 percent of medical professionals participate in the federal program.

The Nevada delegation to the National Silver Haired Congress was scheduled to host a second public meeting with the Medicare Commission at 10 a.m. today in the Showboat hotel-casino.

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