More older Americans are concerned about the future of Medicare, according to a survey published Wednesday.
Seventy-four percent of Americans aged 50 to 64 say they are “extremely worried or worried” about Medicare not being “available when you become eligible to receive it,” according to the West Health-Gallup 2024 Survey on Aging in America.
That figure is up 13 points from 2022. when 61 percent of the same age group said they were concerned about Medicare availability when they are eligible for it.
Seventy-three percent of Americans across all age groups surveyed said they are “extremely worried or worried” about Medicare’s availability when they are eligible for it, up six points from 2022.
“Threats to Medicare and Social Security loom large, and people are worried policymakers won’t do enough to protect and strengthen them,” Timothy Lash, the president of West Health, said in a press release accompanying the report.
“These safety net programs are part of the fabric of aging that millions of older Americans rely upon, so any potential disruption or question mark around them is cause for alarm and deserving of greater attention and action from policymakers,” Lash continued.
The financial outlook for Medicare’s funding has improved in the last year, with its funding to pay all costs of hospital services of older and disabled beneficiaries not forecasted to run out until 2036, as opposed to the previous year’s estimate that it would run out in 2029.
“The fact that such a large percentage of U.S. adults observe little prioritization of issues affecting older Americans underscores the extent to which such prioritization could influence voting preferences, particularly among those already eligible for the federal safety net programs and those that will be soon,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index, said in the release.
The West Health-Gallup survey was conducted between Nov. 13, 2023 and Jan. 8, featuring 5,184 adults.
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level when response percentages are about 50 percent. When response percentages are about 10 or 90 percent, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus one percentage point.
Age subgroups have higher margins of error, commonly ranging from plus or minus three percentage points to plus or minus five percentage points.
