17 Apr 2015
Spotlight

Medicare at 50: Conscientious Reform

As Medicare celebrates 50 years since its signing into law by President Lyndon Johnson, experts look at the challenges facing the program today.  While cost and other reforms are foremost in many policymakers' minds, experts caution that reforms need to keep the program's intended beneficiaries in mind, protecting the most vulnerable from harm.

Related Work

Birthday cake
6 Apr 2015
Commentary

Happy Birthday Medicare and the Affordable Care Act?

This is an anniversary year for both Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Medicare was passed 50 years ago in 1965 and the ACA was passed five years ago. These anniversaries bid us to consider lessons that can improve our healthcare system instead of accepting the benign neglect implicit in much of public discourse on health.
5 Jun 2014
Commentary

An Open Letter to the New HHS Secretary: Medicare Challenges

Medicare expert and Institute Fellow Marilyn Moon offers her thoughts on program reforms and urges new HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to defend beneficiaries against unintended harm: “never forget that Medicare is a program for the elderly and disabled.”
Older machine worker with younger trainee
13 Apr 2015
Index

AIR Index: Does 65 Truly Define “Older Americans”?

A range of policies serving America’s older citizens uses 65 as the cutoff age, but that number no longer means what it once did. This index highlights key facts from our issue brief, Is 65 the Best Cutoff for Defining “Older Americans”?, written by experts with AIR’s Center on Aging .
Doctor counsels older patient
21 Jan 2015
Testimony

Fixing the Sustainable Growth Rate While Protecting Medicare Beneficiaries

Congress enacted the Sustainable Growth Rate in 1997 to control Medicare spending on physician services. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, AIR's Marilyn Moon called the SGR's physician cost limits “poor public policy” but cautioned that any revisions should not be used as a rationale for "reducing valuable benefits to our most vulnerable citizens.”
21 Sep 2012
Video

Marilyn Moon Demystifies Medicare Reform

Medicare reform is a center-stage issue in the presidential campaign. In this video interview, Marilyn Moon, an Institute Fellow at AIR, explains why the issue matters and which features of the federal health insurance program for Americans ages 65 and older and the disabled most need to be addressed.

Further Reading