Posted by Ahmed Al-Salem
How Much Should Older Americans Pay for Insurance?
By MICHELLE ANDREWS
Should older people pay more for health insurance than younger people, and if so, how much more?
The issue has long been on the radar of health policy analysts and consumer advocates weighing the fairness and affordability of health care costs. But it’s likely to receive more scrutiny now. The health reform “framework” put forward by the Senate Finance Committee’s chairman, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, proposed a new standard that would permit older people to be charged significantly higher premiums than would be the case under any of the other health care reform bills.
Under Senator Baucus’s plan, insurers would be permitted to charge older people five times more for their health insurance premiums than younger people. That proposal, first circulated in a Finance Committee policy options paper last spring, is a significant departure from the approaches put forth by three House committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Those bills would only allow insurers to charge older people twice as much as younger ones.
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