And going to Mars. I'm Scott Tong for marketplace. I know. Sometimes you wake up, you have to know right then and there What's going on in business and the economy? Check out the marketplace. Morning report. David Brancaccio in the game getting out of bed. Figuring out what's going on and telling you about it. Check it out. We are give her take six months into the Biden administration as good a moment as any really to check in on where some of the promises that candidate Biden made. Stand now that he's got the job. What about, say health care? As with many other things, it is not just Republicans that Mr Biden has to placate more than 150 House Democrats right with a letter calling on the president to do more on one part of the health care system in particular. Expanding access to Medicare is marketplace Accumulate. Adams reports in President Biden's budget proposal he calls for lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60. And there's research explaining why many advocates see that as a good idea. Joe Strayger is a professor at Stanford School of Medicine and a surgeon. And as a surgeon, I noticed in my practice that there was a there seemed to be a sudden rise in the number of lung cancers. I was treating in patients who had just turned 65. He asked around, and his colleagues saw the same thing. Normal rates at age 64 66, but twice as many lung cancer treatments at 65. There's no biological explanation for why there would be that that kind of jump. But as Schrager found in a research paper he co authored with colleagues There is an economic explanation. People were waiting for treatment until they were eligible for Medicare. Schrager says Lowering the eligibility age could save lives. Because that period of time in your early sixties I think it's a window. Where are sort of work. Associated Assurance system tends to fail a lot of people, and it's the same window when illnesses that are life threatening become more and more common. And conditions that aren't life threatening as well. Judy Stein runs the center for Medicare advocacy. Her group works with clients to ensure they receive Medicare benefits. And they come to Medicare. Uh, sicker, more vulnerable than they might had. The there've been adequate coverage before they came onto Medicare. Lowering the eligibility age may sound simple, but like anything else involving health care in this country, it isn't for example, providers generally get paid less under Medicare than they would from an employer plan or private insurance plan. Tricia Neuman is a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. And so I think if this proposal were to move forward in game steam It would not be a surprise to see serious opposition from the hospital industry and other health care providers. Having more people on Medicare would also shift the cost burden of ensuring them from employers to the government. Mirian logos in teaches health policy at Columbia University. Employers, depending on the generosity of the benefits package may see their employees choosing to ensure themselves through the Public system that would be a real win for small businesses. Of course, all this depends on the details of any eventual plan, which would still need congressional approval. I think that there's there's a degree of pessimism around whether this will go forward and that's up to the political process, and the Biden administration is already in a lot of tough political negotiations at the moment in Washington. I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace..