CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Marilyn Moon, the vice president of the American Institutes for Research, will talk about Medicare’s clouded future beginning at 12:30 p.m. March 1 (Monday) in the Max L. Rowe Auditorium at the College of Law, 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave, Champaign. Her talk is the annual Elder Law Lecture.
Medicare is the nation’s largest health insurance program, covering nearly 40 million Americans 65 years and older. Moon will talk about how the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act, signed by President George W. Bush last December, may alter the program.
She has argued before Congress that allowing choice of benefits through private insurance plans, including prescription drug benefits, could eventually price traditional Medicare beyond the means of most beneficiaries. This in turn may turn Medicare into a program that will serve only the “healthy and wealthy” when the baby boom generation reaches retirement age, she says. Currently, Medicare’s basic program treats all beneficiaries alike.
Before joining the AIR, Moon was the senior health policy fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and a former public trustee of the Medicare Trust Fund. She has written numerous research reports on health-care issues. She earned her doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The Elder Law Journal, a publication produced by the University of Illinois College of Law, is the sponsor of the event.
