Key issues:
Health care reform and Medicare reform
With the number of uninsured Americans at 47 million and health costs at 16 percent of GDP and rising, health care reform is again at the forefront of the domestic policy agenda. The presidential candidates are engaging in a dialogue about the various principles of health care reform: slowing the increase in health care costs; providing coverage for the uninsured; and promoting quality care. The candidates are looking to various means to achieve these goals, including the creation of regional health care markets, instituting individual insurance market reforms, and using tax incentives to encourage insurance coverage and make it more affordable.
Although health care reform has taken center stage, Medicare, in particular, has not received much attention from the presidential candidates. Medicare is facing serious short-term and long-term financing problems and increasing health care spending will cause Medicare to consume more of the federal budget. Candidates need to address Medicare’s problems in the context of a more general focus on stemming rising health care spending.
As these issues are debated, the media will seek to inform the general public as to how the next president and the next Congress will address both Medicare and health care reform. As such, it is important that the public understand of some of the fundamental issues being discussed as part of this national dialogue. To this end, the Academy’s Health Practice Council has developed a series of papers that define the issues and offer some insight into necessary considerations as the presidential candidates put forward their health care reform proposals.
Key issues:
Social Security reform
As Social Security creeps ever closer to 2017 (when benefits and expenses exceed income from taxes) and 2041 (when the trust fund is exhausted) it’s important that Americans question the candidates about how they plan to stabilize what is the foundation of retirement security for many Americans. To help in that process, the Academy’s Social Insurance Committee has created an election guide that contains an overview of possible areas of reform as well as suggested questions to put to the candidates about different reform proposals.
Possible reforms discussed in the election guide include raising the retirement age, changing Social Security’s financing and benefit levels, means testing, and instituting some form of individual accounts.
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