"Only 50/50" Chance of US Medicare Reform Soon

If the USA continues with a split government, as seems likely, the chances of Medicare reform is no more than 50/50 in the short term, says Gail Wilensky, John M Olin Senior Fellow with Project Hope, and a former Administrator of the US Health Care Financing Administration.

She told the annual assembly of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations in Vienna last month (Marketletter October 21) that chances of reform are no greater because: - there is unlikely to be any action to force such a move next year; - the elderly prefer the present system; - there is no consensus about what to do with the "baby-boomers" (the population bulge born during 1945-65 who start retiring in 2010); and - the "X generation" of twentysomethings does not seem to care.

Nevertheless, Medicare is now a particularly vexing budgetary issue, given the long-term pressures that will come from the retirement of the baby-boomers and, more immediately, the impending bankruptcy of the Medicare Hospital Insurance (Part A) Trust Fund, said Dr Wilensky.