Three streams, one river: a coordinated approach to financing retirement

A national retirement policy that coordinates Medicare, Social Security, and private pension reforms could make substantial progress in dealing with problems related to the baby-boom generation's retirement. Such a policy should include (1) better-designed work incentives for older persons--for example, a $10,000 "retirement bonus" option, paid by Social Security and Medicare, for each year of delayed retirement; (2) allowing workers without employer-sponsored pensions to use Social Security's payroll contribution system to invest in pension accounts; (3) expansion of private long-term care insurance by allowing pension-plan assets to be used for paying premiums; and (4) placing a higher priority on financing for basic Medicare and Social Security benefits than on taxpayer-financed subsidies of far more generous pension benefits.