Interesting! Many people here were screaming bloody murder because Pres. Bush got his Medicare prescription policy passed. Think about this: Every person in this country is automatically enrolled in Medicare when they turn 65, WHETHER THEY WANT IT OR NOT. And the money to be forceably enrolled in Medicare is taken out of their SS payments every month. But, it never helped with the enormous prescription bills. And that left Hitlery in a good position to push her universal health care.
Once again, Pres. Bush made the world safer from Hitllery.
And saddled us with an additional trillions of dollars of debt. The prescription drug program was one of Bush's major mistakes.
"The Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual report on the future health of the nation's elderly entitlement programs today, and their findings were chilling. According to a review of the report's findings by John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the unfunded liability of the recently enacted prescription drug benefit for Medicare surpasses that of Social Security.
Social Security will start paying more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2017, the same as estimated in last year's report. Yet while the total unfunded liability of the program has increased by about $2.3 trillion, up from $11.1 trillion to $13.4 trillion, the unfunded liability of Medicare Part D is $16.2 trillion. The Medicare HI Trust Fund runs out in 2018, two years earlier than previously estimated.
"Social Security's future has gotten worse and each year we delay reform adds to the cost we are pushing off onto our children," said NCPA President John C. Goodman. "Yet while the administration was right to try to reform Social Security last year, their drug benefit made the situation much worse. It was akin to throwing gas on the fire."