Medicare Solutions - And Problems

The addition of prescription-drug coverage to Medicare is the first substantial expansion of benefits since the program was enacted nearly 40 years ago. Here I examine this new benefit through the eyes of Medicare beneficiaries and then through the eyes of taxpayers. Those conflicting perspectives reveal that the recent legislation will not resolve the tensions that gave it birth—far from it. In fact, the political challenges can only be expected to intensify, for reasons of economics and demography, as the aging baby boom generation swells the ranks of Medicare beneficiaries. (May 2004)