National Journal (01/10/12) McCarthy, Meghan; O'Donnell, Katy
The Congressional Budget Office has recently completed calculations on savings that would be generated by changing the eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security. Gradually increasing the Medicare eligibility to age 67 at a rate of two months a year would save the government $148 billion over ten years. CBO noted that this gradual increase might cause more people to use Medicaid and might cause others to continue using private insurance. Savings were also possible if the full retirement age for Social Security were raised from 66 to 70, as costs could be reduced by as much as 13 percent, which would save around $120 billion through 2021 when applied to workers born during or after 1973. The change in retirement age would cause many to continue working, increasing the economy and resulting in GDP growth.

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