Life-Span Gap Skews Entitlements Toward the Well-Off
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Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- As policy makers peer into the abyssbelow the fiscal cliff, they are beginning to talk about makingchanges to Medicare, and perhaps even Social Security. Whenlooking at these programs, they would be wise to take intoaccount the widening gap in life expectancy -- a gap defined byeducation and income.
Since better-educated, higher-income Americans are livinglonger than everyone else and therefore collecting benefitslonger, Medicare and Social Security are becoming lessprogressive on a lifetime basis. Fortunately, there are ways tooffset this gap.