March 30, 2007

Medicare in Mexico: Innovating for Fairness & Cost Savings

The Policy Research Project on Medicare Payment for Medical Services in Mexico was done by students in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Dr. David C. Warner. Three papers were presented covering options for extending Medicare benefits to Mexico, models for administering Medicare benefits in Mexico, and how to evaluate cost savings.

The first section on extending benefits reviewed the different options that might be available with regard to which beneficiaries might be covered, the way in which the experiment might be organized, the benefits that might be covered, and the form payment could take.

The second, considered models by examining two programs that currently cover U.S. residents in Mexico. They also examined the Mexican private insurance market and U.S. firms with a presence in the Mexican market to determine if there are existing firms with experience for an interim period.

The third examined how costs may be lowered by a Medicare in Mexico program including: replacing U.S. services with services received in Mexico; more people desiring to retire in Mexico and thus removing them from U.S. Medicare aid; and affordable care in Mexico may allow families to have independent care instead of relying on government care if they stayed in the U.S.