June 29, 2006 2:05PM # Medicare Part D: Who Is the Main Constituency? By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE Watson Wyatt Worldwide has just released a [survey](http://www.watsonwyatt.com/news/press.asp?ID=16207) showing — [again](https://www.cato.org/healthcare/hc3-10-31-05.html) — that Medicare Part D’s employer subsidies and the availability of the new stand-alone drug plans are bailing out employers who can no longer deliver on their promises to retirees: > Despite widespread use of the Medicare federal subsidy, a vast majority of employers are planning to curtail their retiree medical plans for current and future retirees in the next five years… > > > Fourteen percent of employers plan to eliminate the benefit entirely for future post-65 retirees and 6 percent plan to eliminate it for their current post-65 retirees… The lesson from the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation and other [corporate](https://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n1/v25n1-6.pdf) [bailouts](https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA00Aes.html) could not be more clear: if government lets corporations escape the costs of making promises they can’t keep, we’ll get more corporations making promises they can’t keep. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).