Outside the Beltway

Outside the Beltway

Medicare To Be Bankrupt In 13 Years

Doug Mataconis
8

The latest Medicare Trustee’s report is fairly sobering:

The new Medicare trustees report says the trust fund is now likely to run out of money in 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year.

The reason, according to CMS, is that the economic recovery has been slower than expected — making tax revenues come in more slowly.

At a press briefing, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the change in the projection was due to “technical changes in the economic assumptions underlying the projections.”

Which is Washington-speak for “those rosy economic assumptions we made were pretty much crap.”

 

,
, ,

8 responses to “Medicare To Be Bankrupt In 13 Years”

  1. Mithras Avatar
    Mithras

    CMS also said the passage of the health care reform law added eight years of life to the Medicare trust fund. Without the law, the agency said, the trust fund would go into the red in 2016.

    In last year’s report, the trustees predicted the cost savings and tax increases in the Affordable Care Act would extend the life of the Medicare trust fund for 12 years. At that time, it was expected to run out of money in 2029, rather than 2017.

    Then we had better accelerate implementation of the ACA and wrap up the stupid red-state court cases against the individual mandate.

  2. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    Mirthas

    Did you read the part that said the law only extends the life of the fund by eight years?

  3. Patrick T. McGuire Avatar
    Patrick T. McGuire

    The new Medicare trustees report says the trust fund is now likely to run out of money in 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year.

    And by the end of the year, that date will be moved up again.

  4. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    Were your economic projections better Doug?

    (Most projections are wrong, but people want to hear them anyway. See Taken.)

  5. Neil Hudelson Avatar
    Neil Hudelson

    2024? That’s, like, so long from now. We have at least 10 years or so to tackle the problem. I don’t see the big deal.

  6. Mithras Avatar
    Mithras

    Just kidding, Doug. We need to eliminate Bush’s prescription drug benefit, to start. That was just a massive giveaway to Pharma.

  7. john personna Avatar
    john personna

    Sorry, just looking back. My phone edited “Taleb” to “Taken” when I wasn’t looking.

Trending