Definition of "means-test" []

• To apply a means test to or require a means test for (a governmental program, for example). (verb)
• To subject to a means test: The board means-tests all applicants for rent control. (verb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "There are widespread reports that the Obama Administration had agreed to support an increase in Medicare's eligibility age, to means-test certain Medicare programs, to cut Medicaid benefits and to restructure the payments of Social Security benefits as part of a grand bargain with Republicans, if there was also a plan to increase revenue."
• "But then I realized that the people making those arguments wanted to do things like means-test Medicare, or increase cost-sharing across the system, and generally reduce costs in this or that way, which would cut innovation in exactly the same way that single-payer would hypothetically cut innovation: by reducing profits."
• "We should also means-test so that wealthier retirees get less."