The American Association for Retired Person’s, (AARP), has figured out that there will be a whole lot of new people joining Medicare in 2011. It is estimated that there will be 65 new Medicare beneficiaries every eight seconds, which comes to 7,000 new people each day. It has been said that this could drain Medicare this year.
This is the year that many of the people in the generation known as the Baby Boomers will begin retiring. People who were born between 1946 and 1964 are part of the Baby Boomer generation, a time when over seventy-five million children were born. The first Baby Boomers will be turning 65 this year, 2011, and this is going to produce a flood of new applications for Medicare.
In order to get Medicare, a person must meet several requirements. You have to be an American citizen. You must be at least age 65. People who have certain disabilities, but are under age 65, can also receive Medicare. All of us have had money removed from our paychecks that goes toward funding Medicare. That money is used to pay for the medical needs of the people who are currently using Medicare. The idea is that whatever year you turn 65, there will be other, much younger, workers whose paychecks will be reduced in order to fund the Medicare program at that time, so your medical needs will be met. You pay into the system from the moment you get your very first summer job as a teenager, until you retire. In return, you will be taken care of. At least, that is the idea. There are other things that fund Medicare as well, but a sizable portion comes from people’s paychecks.
The problem is that right now, unemployment is still high. There aren’t as many workers paying into the system as there were in previous years. A huge number of people will retire this year, and start getting Medicare benefits. The two sides of the equation are not equal. This could be problematic in many ways. Some fear that the people currently in the Medicare system, as well as the new people who start in 2011, will see a reduction in what Medicare will cover. Another concern is that people who are young, and paying into Medicare today, will end up paying much more than the Baby Boomers had to, by the time they are old enough to receive Medicare themselves.
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