adjustments to payroll contributions or future benefits)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/politics/19MEDI.html Entitlement Costs Are Expected to Soar
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and ROBERT PEAR
Published: March 19, 2004
ASHINGTON, March 18 — Trustees for Medicare and Social Security will report next week that the two entitlement programs will eventually need more than twice as much money as previously estimated, experts who helped prepare the calculations say.<snip>
In their report to Congress last year, the trustees of Medicare and Social Security — four administration officials and two public representatives — said Social Security had $3.5 trillion of "unfunded obligations" over the next 75 years.
The gap looks larger when experts peer further into the future. When trustees and actuaries analyzed the "infinite future," they estimated that Social Security's unfinanced obliga tions would total $10.5 trillion, or three times as much as the gap in the next 75 years.
Analysts say the looming shortfalls for Social Security, big as they are, can be filled with comparatively modest adjustments to payroll contributions or future benefits.
Most analysts believe Medicare shortfalls will be far bigger and more difficult to control, because medical costs have been rising much faster than other prices. <snip>
"Even going 75 years into the future is a wild guess," Ms. Moon (economist and former Medicare trustee) said. "So many things can happen in health care between now and then."
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