Medicare is pouring $6 billion a year into Utah health care, and the program now covers almost 490,000 residents statewide — a number researchers say is on track to nearly double within the next few decades. A new study from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute finds that no other federal health care program spends more money on Utahns than Medicare does right now.
The study, conducted by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, was detailed in reporting by ABC4 Utah this week. Reporter Maggie Campbell's piece lays out just how central the federal insurance program has become to the state's health care economy, with enrollment inching closer to half a million residents and institute projections showing Utah's Medicare rolls could swell to almost 980,000 people by 2060.
Melanie Beagley, a senior health research analyst at the Gardner Institute, said Medicare is essential to Utah's health care system and stands as a major source of federal health care funding for the state. She said the program will only grow more important to Utah residents and the health care industry as the population ages.
Who's Covered, and How
Separate data tracked by the station's report show the scale of that coverage in granular detail. As of February, 484,788 people in Utah had Medicare, and more than half — 55% — were enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans rather than original Medicare, according to healthinsurance.org. That private-plan enrollment rate in Utah, cited at 55.2% in the Gardner Institute findings, lines up closely with the 55.0% national average, per the study.
Private Medicare plans can differ from original Medicare in their provider networks and benefits, a distinction that matters for the roughly 9% of Utah beneficiaries who are under age 65, per the same account. Prescription drug coverage splits a similar way: 141,012 Utah beneficiaries carried stand-alone Medicare Part D plans as of February, while 248,855 got their drug coverage bundled into a Medicare Advantage plan. Utah beneficiaries had an average of 25 Medicare Advantage plans to choose from this year, and 81,726 residents were enrolled in supplemental Medigap plans back in 2023.
A Rural-Urban Divide in Coverage
The share of residents on Medicare varies sharply by county, the Gardner Institute study found. Daggett, Wayne and Kane counties post the highest percentages of Medicare beneficiaries in the state, while Utah, Cache and Tooele counties — all home to younger, faster-growing populations — have the lowest shares.
The study also points to a structural reality underlying the reimbursement debate: Medicare tends to pay providers less than commercial insurers do, and original Medicare specifically can pay up to 250% less than other plans, according to the institute's findings. That gap helps explain why provider reimbursement is one of the policy considerations Beagley flagged as the state's senior population grows — alongside future health care needs and the broader economic impacts of federal programs.
Why Utah's Medicare Rolls Are About to Surge
The population math behind those projections is stark. Utah's overall population is expected to climb from nearly 3.6 million in 2025 to 5.6 million by 2065, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Within that growth, the share of Utahns age 65 and older is projected to rise from one in eight residents today to nearly one in four by 2065, and the state's median age is expected to jump from 32.8 to 45.3 over the same period.
That graying population is expected to reshape the job market as much as the health system. The institute identified health care and social assistance among the industries projected to add the most jobs through 2065, a trend detailed further in the Gardner Institute's long-term population projections. For a state that has long prided itself on a young, growing workforce, the shift toward an older Utah means Medicare's $6 billion footprint is likely just the starting point.
