Report Says Medicare to Go Broke by 2019

[rodbarnett]

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 because of rising health costs, trustees reported Tuesday.

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

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 signed into law in December "raise serious doubt about the sustainability of Medicare under current financing arrangements," the trustees said.

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.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040323/D81G7NOG0.html

[Moderator]

1. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x439605