Project 2025’s Medicare Changes Would Restrict Older Americans’ Access to Care and Imperil the Program’s Financial Health

The Medicare program provides critical health care coverage for more than 67 million older Americans. However, the authoritarian playbook known as Project 2025 puts this coverage at risk. Project 2025 includes plans to make Medicare Advantage (MA)—privatized Medicare—the default option for all Medicare enrollees, pushing the United States toward a future of fully privatized Medicare. A new Center for American Progress article examines the threat Project 2025 poses to Medicare enrollees and the solvency of the Medicare trust fund. Some key takeaways from the article include:

• If implemented, Project 2025 would lead to a multibillion-dollar annual giveaway to corporations at the expense of Medicare enrollees and taxpayers, and at the expense of Medicare’s financial sustainability.
• Medicare Advantage costs the Medicare program 22 percent more per enrollee than traditional Medicare.
• If Project 2025’s plan to make MA the default option were to expand the proportion of Medicare beneficiaries in MA to 75 percent—up from its current enrollment level of 51 percent—CAP estimates that wasteful spending could approach an eye-popping $2 trillion over 10 years.
• Making Medicare Advantage the default option would restrict more Medicare enrollees’ options over which doctors and hospitals they can receive care from.

“Project 2025’s plan to make Medicare Advantage the default option would give corporations even more power and strip doctors and patients of the freedom to make decisions about what care enrollees can or cannot receive,” said Brian Keyser, research associate for Health Policy at CAP and co-author of the analysis. “Project 2025’s plan makes it clear—its priority is to help boost profit-driven corporations’ bottom lines at the expense of Medicare enrollees’ access to care and the future solvency of Medicare.”

Read the article: “Project 2025’s Medicare Changes Would Restrict Older Americans’ Access to Care and Imperil the Program’s Financial Health” by Brian Keyser and Andrea Ducas