The Medicare program, while quite popular with beneficiaries, has been groaning under the weight of an ever-increasing budgetary impact. Both the spending per beneficiary and the number of beneficiaries itself are rising well above the rate of growth of the overall population.
From 2013 to 2023, total enrollment grew 27 percent, resulting in 65 million total beneficiaries and a total expenditure of $839 billion, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Matthew Maughan is a doctoral student of health services research and health economics at Brown University.
