What Clinton and Trump Would Do to Medicare
Baby boomers are increasingly nervous they won't have enough money to pay for healthcare in retirement, and with Medicare straining because of rising enrollment, it's unlikely those fears will disappear anytime soon.
In this clip from The Motley Fool's Industry Focus: Healthcarepodcast, host Kristine Harjes and contributor Todd Campbell discuss presidential candidates Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's plans for Medicare.
A full transcript follows the video.
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This podcast was recorded on Sept. 14, 2016.
Kristine Harjes:With the upcoming presidential election,so much of this could besubject to change. You have two candidates right now that each have their ownpolicy proposals, and there's really no way to predictexactly what's going to happen to Medicaregoing forward.
Todd Campbell:Yeah. There are some common themesacross the two major candidates. Both Clinton and Trumphave said that they would like to haveMedicare be able to negotiatedirectly with drugmakers. That's one thing. They both also suggested that theywouldn't be against allowing for the importation of drugs from cheapercountries into the United States,assuming, of course, that you could guaranteethe safetyand the authenticityof that medication. Clinton has some additional proposals,including expanding Medicareto people who are younger than 65, maybe people as young as 55would be able to enroll in the program. She's also proposed some caps in out-of-pocket spending on drugs that could helpMedicare patients. Meanwhile,Trump has said that he feels it's a third-rail topic, and we shouldn't be looking at reducing benefits to Medicare,we should probably leave it as it is from here.
Harjes:Right. So,it will definitely be an interesting thing to watch going forward. Every time we talk about politics,I feel like we have to mention thatgiven that you can't predict these things,it's very difficult to try to [work] them in to your investing,and this sort of uncertaintytouches just about every industry that there is. Unless you want to opt out of the stock marketaltogether,you have some sort of regulatory risk. But, of course,with the pharmaceutical industry coming under such scrutiny lately,it's a hot topic in these presidential campaigns,and I'm sure we'll be hearing more on it from the two candidatesas the election season goes forward.
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