AP: Medicare Heading Toward Bankruptcy

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20040323/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/medicare_social_security

WASHINGTON - Medicare will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday.

Social Security (news - web sites)'s finances showed little change.

The deteriorating financial picture for the health care program for older and disabled Americans is a result, in part, of the new Medicare prescription drug law that will swell costs by more than $500 billion over 10 years, according to the annual report by government trustees.

Provisions of the law that President Bush (news - web sites) signed into law in December "raise serious doubt about the sustainability of Medicare under current financing arrangements," the trustees said.

Social Security's projected insolvency date remained 2042.

The 2019 go-broke date for the Medicare trust fund, which is devoted primarily to paying beneficiaries' hospital bills, is seven years sooner than what the trustees projected last year.

more

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/WAT000896.htm

US Medicare seen in the red in 2004-trustees

WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - Prospects for Medicare, the U.S. federal medical program for the elderly, dimmed sharply over the last year and spending is expected to exceed income in 2004, the program's trustees said in a report Tuesday.

"The financial outlook for the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund that pays hospital benefits has deteriorated significantly from last year, with annual cash flow deficits beginning this year and expected to grow rapidly after 2010 as baby boomers begin to retire," the trustees of Medicare and Social Security said in their annual look at the financial health of the programs.

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[Malva Zebrina]

1. Bush is happy--is anyone out there attempting to fix this in any way?

or are they all going to let it ride itself down to the sewer? and I mean all--including the Democrats

[ewagner]

2. that was the plan

force it to be too expensive so it has to be eliminated....just ask Grover Norquist!

[UpInArms]

4. I see the fragile

fabric of our society swirling the drain on that pig's bathtub.

[latebloomer]

3. But there's always money,

there's always money, there's ALWAYS MONEY FOR WAR!!

[cspiguy]

5. then maybe it really DOES need REFORM.

no more sacred cow programs. fat and stupid is no way to go through life.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Yahoo changed their own headline. Why would they do that?

The Guardian has the original one that I used when I posted this article from Yahoo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3894550,00.html

AP: Medicare Heading Toward Bankruptcy

Tuesday March 23, 2004 5:16 PM


By MARK SHERMAN and LEIGH STROPE

Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) - Medicare will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling in cost because of a new prescription drug benefit, trustees reported Tuesday.

Social Security's finances showed little change.

more

[NNN0LHI]

7. kick

[SOS]

8. Something is wrong with the US system

Per capita expenditure on healthcare 1998:

US: $4,178
Sweden: $1,746

Life expectancy:

US: 77.4 years
Sweden: 79.8 years.

US: #1 in spending - 14.5% of GDP
US: #24 in global life expectancy

Spending trillions to live a shorter life than the people of Costa Rica!

[w4rma]

9. Medicare isn't going bankrupt. There are WAY more than enough

taxes coming in, through *only* the payroll tax to pay for it. The problem is that Bush is overspending and had cut taxes on the most wealthy folks using the money from the payroll tax to pay for those taxes plus loans(deficit).

[papau]

10. Easy solution - change "wage base" to include all cap gain/interest

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html

The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds is 1.89 percent of taxable payroll, down slightly from 1.92 percent in last year's report.Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase in payroll taxes of 15 percent or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent (or some combination of the two).

The projected 75-year actuarial deficit in the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is now 3.12 percent of taxable payroll, up significantly from 2.40 percent in last year's report mainly due to higher actual and projected hospital expenditures, as well as lower actual and projected taxable payroll, and new Medicare legislation. HI could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years by an immediate 108 percent increase in program income (by raising the rate or increasing the items included in the definition of "income" such as using 100% of capital gains and investment income in tax base) or an immediate 48 percent reduction in program outlays (or some combination of the two).





KEY DATES FOR THE TRUST FUNDS OASI DI OASDI HI
First year outgo exceeds income
excluding interest 2018 2008 2018 2004

First year outgo exceeds income
including interest 2029 2017 2028 2010

Year trust fund assets are exhausted 2044 2029 2042 2019

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR04/tr04.pdf
http://cms.hhs.gov/publications/trusteesreport/default.asp (medicare only)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20040323/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/medicare_social_security

Report Says Medicare to Go Broke by 2019 By MARK SHERMAN and LEIGH STROPE, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - Medicare will have to begin dipping into its trust fund this year to keep up with expenditures and will go broke by 2019 without changes in a program that is swelling because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday.

Social Security's finances showed little change, and its projected insolvency date remained 2042. <snip>

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. We're the only industrialized nation in the world

that does not have national health care.

[Paradise]

12. There are financial experts

who say Medicare can be saved, however if * gets another four years it WILL be history!