Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Life Health > Health Insurance > Medicare Planning

Actuary: Medicare Drug Benefit Has High Tax Cost

By Staff Writer

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

NU Online News Service, March 19, 2004, 5:41 p.m. EST – The new Medicare prescription drug benefit could cost every U.S. resident an average of $511 in taxes apiece by 2016.[@@]

Kathie Ely, an actuary in the Hartford office of Milliman USA, has published that prediction in the latest issue of a Milliman health practice newsletter.

President Bush gave birth to the new Medicare drug benefit Dec. 8, 2003, when he signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act. The drug benefit provision will take effect in 2006.

The benefit will cost an average of $111 in taxes per U.S. resident in 2006. That total could rise to about $511 in 2016 and $2,370 in 2026, Ely estimates.

Ely’s forecast assumes that prescription drug costs will continue to rise 15% per year.

Ely notes that the Medicare drug benefit program would pay only about 34% of Medicare beneficiaries’ total drug costs over the next 10 years and that the beneficiaries would pay about 66% of the costs.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.