Raising the Medicare Age: Who Benefits? Follow the Money!

Just published on Think Progress:  

Obama suggests raising the Medicare eligibility age is NOT off the table.

Obama was quoted saying:

When you look at the evidence, it’s not clear that it actually saves a lot of money,” he said. “But what I’ve said is let’s look at every avenue, because what is true is we need to strengthen Social Security, we need to strengthen Medicare for future generations, the current path is not sustainable because we’ve got an aging population and health care costs are shooting up so quickly.

There are so many good reasons to NOT raise the age for Medicare eligibility; check THIS LINK with many reasons why we should NOT raise the age for Medicare eligibility.  

Not only will it not save the government that much money, but it will hurt Medicare long term, as the youngest and healthiest Medicare beneficiaries will no longer be in the program.  For any kind of insurance program to be successful, you need people who are going to be paying in and not using the service.. or not using the service very much.

Who might benefit if the eligibility age for Medicare is raised?

Hmmm.....   Private insurers.  

Could this be the biggest reason why the Republicans are pushing for this?  How much are the private insurers lobbying the Democrats as well on this one?