Forbes April 12, 2021
President Joe Biden wants to lower Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 60. Now Sen. Bernie Sanders is intent on doing him one better. The Vermont socialist, the country’s leading promoter of single-payer health care, is pushing Democrats to open up Medicare to Americans as young as 55.
“There are many millions of seniors who would be very, very grateful if we did that right now,” Sanders recently said. That doesn’t make it a good idea. Not only is it unnecessary, given that older adults are more likely to have insurance than any other age group. Lowering Medicare’s eligibility age would also put more financial stress on the entitlement, which is dangerously close to insolvency.
In 2020, the program’s trustees...