6. Generate New Revenue by Increasing the Payroll Tax Rate
The primary source of funding for Medicare hospital services (Part A) comes from the payroll tax. Workers and their employers each contribute 1.45 percent of earnings for a total contribution of 2.9 percent. Medicare also offers coverage for physician services (Part B) and prescription drugs (Part D), but these services are not funded by the payroll tax. It's estimated that beginning in 2024 Medicare will not have enough money to pay for all of the expected hospital expenses. Increasing the payroll tax rate by 0.5 percent to 3.9 percent (or to 1.95 percent each for workers and employers) would raise additional revenue for Medicare’s inpatient hospital expenses. For an individual earning about $50,000 a year in wages, this increase would amount to an extra $250 in Medicare payroll taxes per year.
PRO: The Affordable Care Act health reform legislation includes important measures that promise to slow the growth of spending under Medicare hospital insurance (Part A). However, even with these cost-control measures, Medicare hospital insurance faces a small long-term deficit. That gap can, and should, be closed by a modest increase in payroll taxes. In addition, some changes in benefits are in order to improve protections against extended or repeated hospitalizations. There is no reason to perpetuate the myth that Medicare hospital insurance is in crisis. It isn’t. Vigorous enforcement of the health care law together with this modest tax increase will secure hospital insurance for current and future Medicare beneficiaries. (Henry J. Aaron, Brookings Institution)
CON: Addressing Medicare’s long-term financial problems by raising payroll taxes on working Americans is not the answer. Doing so will make the situation worse for the economy and for our children and grandchildren, and it will erode the political will to undertake needed reforms. We need to make sure that programs like Medicare don’t take such a large share of the economy in the future that there is not enough for other critical goals like education, rebuilding our roads and bridges, and defending America. We’ve got to get the future costs of Medicare down, not tax Americans more. (Stuart Butler, Heritage Foundation)
