The findings suggest that the emerging debate over Medicare’s future matters not only to seniors and those nearing retirement, but to a broad cross-section of Americans.

The report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation shows that federal taxpayers would save billions if the Medicare eligibility age, currently 65, is increased by two years. But people ages 65 and 66, employers — along with states, Medicare recipients and even some younger families — would see ripple effects that add to their costs.

Those costs could total more than $2,000 a year for some individuals.

Medicare covers 47 million elderly and disabled people, and it’s is widely seen as financially unsustainable over the long run. Raising the eligibility age is among the leading fixes under discussion.

Years ago, lawmakers decided to gradually increase the Social Security retirement age to 67 for people born in 1960 or later. But they left the Medicare eligibility age unchanged. Now some policymakers are saying the qualifying ages for the two programs should be yoked together — at 67 or even higher.

“There are so many moving parts in a program as big as Medicare that it’s difficult to make changes without having ripple effects for others,” said Tricia Neuman, Kaiser’s leading Medicare expert. The foundation serves as a clearinghouse for information about the nation’s health care system.

The study assumed that President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul remains in place, and doesn’t get overturned by the courts or repealed by Congress. Without Obama’s health insurance expansion, raising the Medicare age could potentially leave several million

more people uninsured. With the new health care law, the main consequence appears to be a big shift in costs from the federal government to others.

Among the report’s findings:

– Most 65- and 66-year-olds would pay significantly more for their health care because they would not be in Medicare. If the Medicare age was raised to 67 in 2014, about three out of four people ages 65 to 66 would pay $2,400 more, on average. The rest would be eligible for various kinds of subsidies for low-to-moderate income people provided under the health care law.

– Employers would pay an estimated $4.5 billion more for health insurance in 2014, because older workers would stay on the job longer to remain eligible for their company’s coverage. Under the rules, workplace plans must provide primary coverage for employees who keep working past 65.

– People under 30 buying coverage in new health insurance markets that open for business in 2014 would see their premiums rise nearly 8 percent over previous projections. The health care law sets up insurance markets to provide one-stop shopping for people who buy their coverage directly and for small businesses. An influx of older adults no longer eligible for Medicare would raise costs for that pool.

– Medicare recipients would face monthly premiums about 3 percent higher because the youngest seniors would be

removed from the program’s insurance pool, raising per-person costs for those who remain behind.

– States would face somewhat higher costs because some low-income people currently eligible for Medicare and Medicaid would be left with Medicaid only.

“This analysis drives home the tough policy choices that lie ahead when Washington gets serious about reducing the federal deficit,” Neuman said.

is to cut costs.
Financial stocks in the S&P 500 index rose 2.2 percent, the most of any of the index’s 10 company groups. American Express Co. gained 3.5 percent, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. gained 2.6 percent.
Falling oil prices also helped stock

s move higher. Oil prices dipped 0.5 percent to $105 a barrel after Kuwait’s oil minister said that OPEC members are in informal talks about raising oil output as the conflict in Libya continues.
“Rapidly higher moving oil prices can substantially impact demand,” said Oliver Pursche, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services. It’s something OPEC members are “very, very much aware of and want to avoid.”
Oil prices have risen 9 percent so far this month. That has pushed stocks lower as investors worry that higher gas prices will dampen the economic recovery.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 124.35 points, or 1 percent, to 12,214.38. The S&P 500 rose 11.69, or 0.9 percent, to 1,321.82.
Energy companies were the only group in the S&P index to fall, losing 0.6 percent.
The Nasdaq composite rose 20.14, or 0.7 percent, to 2,765.77.
Bond prices fell, pushing yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.54 percent from 3.51 percent late Monday.
Brown-Forman Corp. rose 4.7 percent after the liquor company said its net income rose 30 percent in the latest quarter thanks to growing international sales and a strong performance by its flagship Jack Daniel’s brand.
Urban Outfitters Inc. fell 16.7 percent after the retailer’s earnings missed Wall Street’s expectations due to higher expenses.
Netflix fell 5.8 percent after Facebook announced that it will allow members to stream movies through its pages, a direct competition to Netflix’s popular on-demand offering.
Three stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 4.3 billion shares.

The presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of the Group of 20 nations have halfheartedly respected their pledge of four months ago to avoid turning inwards in fighting the economic crisis. Since then, world commerce has plummeted in a way unseen since the Great Depression.

With no concerted strategy for a revival, some economists say a rash of go-it-alone stimulus packages and industry bailouts could lead to trade wars — causing havoc in one of the key driving forces to the world’s economic growth since World War II.

“We’re playing with fire,” said Jagdish Bhagwati, an economist at Columbia University. “The system was designed to avoid the free-for-all wrestling of the 1930s. If the U.S. and France start saying, ‘This is legal so I am going to do it,’ everyone else will start to play that game.”

The World Bank says 17 of the 20 countries whose leaders are meeting in London on Thursday have resorted to protectionist measures since declaring their opposition to such action during a November conference in Washington.

The World Trade Organization says most of the major powers — from the United States and European Union to China and India — have erected new barriers to imports in the form of tariffs, subsidies or other measures designed to protect domestic industries.

Part of the problem is that the financial collapse shattered confidence in the world’s economic order, which includes as a major tenet the free flow of goods and services. With the recession deepening, pressure has ramped up on governments to come up with more ways to protect farmers, manufacturers and service providers from competitors overseas.

“The case for trade needs to be made more effectively, including by us,” said Keith Rockwell, spokesman for WTO chief Pascal Lamy, who will attend the London summit. “It behooves all of us to explain the benefits of trade, and what it means to economic growth and development.”

For 60 years, international trade has been a major driver of the global economy, outpacing GDP growth and spurring gains in both rich and poor countries. But trade is being hit hard by the crisis, with the WTO recently predicting that global commercial activity will shrink 9 percent in 2009 after 27 years of uninterrupted expansion.

The main cause is the sharp drop in demand for goods, both domestic and foreign, but analysts warn that protectionist sentiment threatens to make recovery far more difficult.

And slower, said Ed Gresser, trade director at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington.

He said merchandise imports in the United States, the world’s biggest market for foreign goods, has fallen about a third — to $210 billion a month from $310 billion only a half-year ago. That’s slightly worse than the 30 percent fall in trade in the first six months after the 1929 market crash.

“We’re in bad shape and I wouldn’t say we’ve seen the bottom yet,” Gresser said. “Governments haven’t really been working together. But they aren’t really working at odds with each other. If they did, we could be in for a very hard time.”

From footwear to steel to automaking, the G-20 countries have contributed to a protectionist swing, and there may be little the leaders can do in London to immediately reverse that trend, beyond broader attempts to stimulate the economy and fire up demand.

There are a host of smaller spats among the participants.

China is fuming over a U.S. ban on its poultry over safety concerns; Washington is looking to move against subsidies it accuses Beijing of paying manufactures. Farm exporters are upset with the 27-nation European Union’s reintroduction of dairy subsidies; and European nations are bickering among themselves over auto bailout packages and which members will have to shoulder job cuts.

The danger is best highlighted in a dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over trucking. Mexico has raised tariffs on 89 American products worth $2.4 billion in annual trade in retaliation for a U.S. decision to cancel a program that gave Mexican truckers access to U.S. highways. American fruit, wine and washing machines will be among the goods affected.

“If anyone doubted the danger of tit-for-tat, the Mexican response was a pretty clear indication that things can spiral out of control pretty easily,” said Rockwell at the WTO. “That helps nobody. Everybody knows this intellectually, but each and every one of the leaders is facing protectionist pressures from domestic constituents.”

The media conglomerate also reported a lower quarterly profit, dragged by AOL, but it still slightly beat Wall Street expectations on strong advertising sales from its cable TV networks such as CNN and films like “Sex and the City.”

The AOL split underscores Time Warner’s focus on creating content rather than distributing it. “As we continue to reshape Time Warner, we’ll increasingly focus on our goal to create and manage high-quality branded content,” Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes said.

The company has said it plans to shed its cable services division, Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC – News), by the end of the year.

Time Warner has also been in talks to combine the AOL advertising business with either Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO – News) or Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT – News), while EarthLink Inc (NasdaqGS:ELNK – News) signaled last week that it could be interested in buying dial-up businesses.

“A separation of AOL would eliminate what’s been a drag on growth and a management distraction,” said Christopher Marangi, associate portfolio manager at Gabelli & Co, a Time Warner investor. “We look forward to hearing more about structural alternatives there.”

AOL revenue fell 16 percent in the second quarter, reflecting a 29 percent drop in subscription revenue as it lost 604,000 subscribers. It ended the quarter with 8.1 million U.S. subscribers.

Online advertising revenue rose 2 percent, as growth in ads displayed on sites not owned by AOL offset a decline in display ads on AOL-owned sites. Operating income fell 36 percent.

“Some of (Time Warner’s) businesses most exposed to advertising, like a lot of the other companies that reported so far, did worse on revenue, but had other revenue sources like subscriptions to offset that,” said David Joyce, analyst at Miller Tabak & Co LLC.

CABLE, FILMS BOOST RESULTS

Time Warner’s second-quarter net income fell 26 percent to $792 million, or 22 cents per share, from $1.07 billion, or 28 cents per share, a year earlier, when it logged big gains including from the sale of its interest in Bookspan.

Excluding items such as $51 million in legal and professional fees, and impairment charges from cable systems and Turner networks, profit was 24 cents per share, exceeding analyst expectations of 23 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose 5 percent to $11.56 billion, ahead of Wall Street forecasts of $11.45 billion.

Time Warner affirmed its full-year forecast that adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization would rise 7 percent to 9 percent, though it said growth would most likely come at the low end of that range. It saw earnings per share from continuing operations at $1.07 to $1.11.

The second quarter was another reminder of why the owner of HBO, Time Inc and Warner Bros is keen on structural changes to put its movies and cable programming back in the spotlight.

Film division revenue rose 14 percent and operating income rose 16 percent from the hit movie “Sex And The City” and higher contributions from home videos “I Am Legend,” “10,000 B.C.” and video games including “LEGO Indiana Jones.”

Cable networks revenue rose 9 percent, helped by a 10 percent rise in subscription revenue and 11 percent gain in ad revenue. More viewers and higher ad rates at Turner Broadcasting’s entertainment and news networks boosted ad sales. Operating profit rose 18 percent.

While cable networks advertising held up well for Time Warner, Lehman Brothers analyst Anthony DiClemente said industry-wide ad sales are deteriorating across the board this year.

“Local advertisers are much more vulnerable,” DiClemente said, highlighting News Corp and CBS Corp’s results in the quarter ending June 30. But that “doesn’t mean national advertisers are not also seeing weakness spill over.”

Revenue from Time Warner Cable rose 7 percent to $4.3 billion and operating profit rose 4 percent from gains in new broadband, digital phone and video customers. It lost 9,000 basic video customers in the quarter.

Shares of Time Warner have fallen 13 percent this year, less sharply than the 31 percent drop for rival News Corp (NYSE:NWS-A – News), as investors were hoping for a lift when Time Warner sheds AOL.

Time Warner shares rose 7 cents to $14.95 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Wall Street extended its slump into yet another week Monday as investors worried that even a safety net set up for mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t head off further troubles in the financial markets.

Investors’ latest unease about the banking sector comes in a week when many financial names are to issue quarterly reports — many of which will likely include sizable write-downs of souring mortgage debt.

The Treasury and the Federal Reserve said Sunday they would aid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if needed. Wall Street has been on edge about the well-being of the government-chartered companies because they together hold or back $5.3 trillion of mortgage debt, about half the outstanding mortgages in the United States. Washington’s efforts to shore up confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at times helped those shares Monday but troubles arose in other corners of the financial sector.

Investors worried about a run on IndyMac Bancorp Inc. that led to the bank’s takeover by the government Friday. IndyMac is the largest regulated thrift to fail.

Trading in shares of regional bank National City Corp. was briefly halted as the company responded to rumors of financial troubles. The bank said in a statement it is experiencing “no unusual depositor or creditor activity” and that as of Friday’s close it had more than $12 billion of excess short-term liquidity.

The rumors and sell-off of regional banks reflect the unease investors have about where financial troubles might emerge.

“My sense is that investors are taking a pretty cautious stance,” said Jack A. Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. “The government can’t bail out the whole industry.”

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 45.35, or 0.41 percent, to 11,055.19 after spiking nearly 140 points in early trading.

Worries over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Friday led to a volatile session in which the Dow dipped below the 11,000 mark for the first time in about two years before paring its losses; the market suffered its fourth straight losing week.

Broader stock indicators also dropped Monday. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 11.19, or 0.90 percent, to 1,228.30, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 26.21, or 1.17 percent, to 2,212.87.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 5.29 billion shares, down from a very heavy 6.57 billion on Friday.

Bond prices jumped as investors sought the safety of government debt. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its yield, fell to 3.86 percent from 3.96 percent late Friday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices jumped.

Light, sweet crude settled up 10 cents at $145.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were volatile after tumbling last week amid concerns they would succumb to losses in their mortgage portfolios. The Fed said it would lend to the two companies “should such lending prove necessary.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said his department is asking Congress for quick approval of a plan to expand its line of credit to the two companies and to make an equity investment in them if necessary.

Fannie Mae fell 52 cents, or 5.1 percent, to $9.73, while Freddie Mac fell 64 cents, or 8.3 percent, to $7.11.

While the companies say they have adequate access to capital, the government’s effort to help the companies is designed to reassure investors who have grown nervous about further fallout from the nearly year-old credit crisis.

“There’s a disconnect with saving Fannie and Freddie and bailing out the shareholders,” Ablin said. “If the government steps in and ultimately creates a bailout of these entities, I’d be astounded if equity holders were left with anything. I think the market is realizing that.”

National City fell 65 cents, or 14.7 percent, to $3.77.

Other banks declined, too: Washington Mutual Inc. fell $1.72, or 34.8 percent, to $3.23.

Jeff Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial Services in Boston, said investors are pouncing on banks in regions where the housing market pullback has been the steepest, thinking they are likely to have the greatest exposure to bad mortgage debt.

“We might not be seeing depositors make a run on the banks today but we’re certainly seeing investors do that,” he said.

“I think it’s concern about another IndyMac — that credit ratios are deteriorating so rapidly.”

Outside the financial sector, Anheuser-Busch Cos. agreed to a sweetened $52 billion takeover bid from Belgian brewer InBev SA. The deal involving a marquee name in American business combines the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light with the producer of Stella Artois and Beck’s. Anheuser-Busch rose 37 cents to $66.87.

Yahoo Inc. revealed Saturday it had rejected Microsoft Corp.’s latest attempt to acquire its online search engine in a joint proposal made with activist investor Carl Icahn, who is leading an effort to remove Yahoo’s current board. Yahoo fell $1, or 4.2 percent, to $22.57, while Microsoft slipped 14 cents to $22.57.

The renewed concerns about the financial sector come in what is expected to be a busy week for corporate news, with a steady stream of quarterly results due from names like Intel Corp., Cola-Cola Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Citigroup Inc.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 10.45, or 1.55 percent, to 664.50.

Overseas, Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose 0.45 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.74 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 0.76 percent, and France’s CAC-40 advanced 1.02 percent.