A Medicare Buy-In?

Currently, one issue being debated on Capitol Hill is that of a possible Medicare buy-in for people who have not yet reached the 65 year cutoff. The buy-in discussed would be for people of ages 55 to 64 who do not have any sort of private insurance. The main problem, however, is the fact that the buy-in would cost an average of $7,600 a year as a premium. This is well above the average premium in the private sector, which is in the $4,000 range. The expense of the Medicare buy-in comes from the general costs of running the program. So if Medicare is a good option for this "middle-of-the-road" group, how could they pay for it? The answer at the moment seems to be subsidies from the government. In my mind, this seems quite strange, considering the $7,600 cost would practically be paid to the government to cover cost. So, if the government is also providing subsidies for the cost, they would essentially just be lower the age requirements for Medicare, because costs would cancel each other out. To me, it seems that Congress should come up with a more effective idea for covering this middle age group, without compromising the Medicare plane for the people which already have it. The link to the article is here.