We are on the verge of breaking the biggest killers we face today. Material improvements in these diseases will take a huge burden out the medical system in the future.
Baby boomer retirement and the demographics and long life spans behind the numbers.
Scientific helps will be helpful! But the problem is not going away.
And add to our SS problem along with other problems associated with aging populations. There is no cure all or magic bullet to fix the problem. Medicare will a problem several multiples greater than SS and the crisis point will come even sooner than SS.
Medicare
As we reported last year, Medicare's financial difficulties come sooner--and are much more severe--than those confronting Social Security. While both programs face essentially the same demographic challenge, health care costs per enrollee are projected to rise faster than the wages per worker on which the payroll tax is paid and on which Social Security benefits are based. As a result, while Medicare's annual costs are currently 2.7 percent of GDP, or about 60 percent of Social Security's, they are now projected to surpass Social Security expenditures in 2024 and reach almost 14 percent of GDP in 2078, more than twice the percent for Social Security in that year.
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. The fund now fails our test of short-range financial adequacy, as assets drop below the level of the next year's projected expenditures within 10 years--in 2012. The fund also continues to fail our long-range test of close actuarial balance by a wide margin. The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion has moved forward significantly to 2019, from 2026 in last year's report, and projected HI tax income falls short of outlays beginning this year, as compared to 2013 in last year's report. HI could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years by an immediate 108 percent increase in program income or an immediate 48 percent reduction in program outlays (or some combination of the two). However, as with Social Security, adjustments of far greater magnitude would be necessary to the extent changes are delayed or phased in gradually, and continuation of the program after 2078 would require substantial changes.
Part B of the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund, which pays doctors' bills and other outpatient expenses, and the new Part D, which pays for access to prescription drug coverage, are both projected to remain adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law automatically sets financing each year to meet next year's expected costs. However, this automatic provision will result in a rapidly growing amount of general revenue financing--projected to rise from 0.9 percent of GDP today to 6.2 percent in 2078--as well as substantial increases over time in beneficiary premium charges.