http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=4636330§ion=newsWASHINGTON (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 Medicare hospital fund that pays hospital benefits is expected to become insolvent in 2019, the report also said, seven years earlier than predicted in last year's report.
"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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The report is likely to help make Medicare and Social Security more high-profile issues in the November U.S. elections. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has argued that tax cuts pushed through by President Bush threaten the future of Social Security. President Bush campaigned on creating personal accounts for Social Security that could be invested, but that proposal has made little headway since the stock markets peaked in 2000. :evilgrin:
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