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Past Event

The 2016 Medicare Trustees Report: One year closer to IPAB cuts?

Past Event

The 2016 Medicare Trustees Report: One year closer to IPAB cuts?

For most of the last five decades, the most-discussed finding by the Medicare trustees has been the insolvency date, when Medicare’s trust fund would no longer be able to pay all of the program’s costs. Last year’s report projected that the hospital insurance trust fund would be depleted by 2030 – just 14 years from now. The report also predicted a more immediate and controversial event: the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), famously nicknamed “death panels,” would be required to submit proposals to reduce Medicare spending in 2018, with the reductions taking place in 2019. Do we remain on this path to automatic Medicare cuts next year?

The American Enterprise Institute and the Schaeffer Initiative for Innovation in Health Policy, a collaboration between the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and the Brookings Institution, hosted a discussion of the new 2016 trustees report on June 23. Medicare’s Chief Actuary Paul Spitalnic summarized the key findings followed by a panel of experts who discussed the potential consequences of the report for policy actions that might be taken to improve the program’s fiscal condition. You can join the conversation at #MedicareReport.

Agenda

Introduction

Joseph Antos

Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy, American Enterprise Institute

Keynote Address

Paul Spitalnic

Chief Actuary - Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Panel Discussion

Joseph Antos

Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy, American Enterprise Institute

James Capretta

Visiting Fellow, American Enterprise Institute - Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Keith Fontenot

Managing Director of Government Relations and Public Policy - Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, PC

Former Brookings Expert

Robert Moffit

Senior Fellow, Center for Health Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation

Paul Spitalnic

Chief Actuary - Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

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