Medicare Lives to See Another Day

Medicare apparently will live to see another day or two as long as people stop getting sick and living longer.          

A recent report could have been written by Mark Twain. Reports of an early demise are greatly exaggerated.

Medicare has two more years to live than previously thought. The program's trustees recently estimated that the "depletion date for the trust fund is 2026, two years later than was shown in last year's report."

Philadelphia Enquirer

That's good new for short timers.

Not so much if you have just started on Medicare or are hoping it will be around when you turn 65

And that may be an underestimate. The projections are "based on the trustees' intermediate set of assumptions," which include sharp reductions in payments to doctors and other providers that Congress has routinely overruled in the past.

So if doctors and hospitals are willing to work for less money they can help save Medicare.

No problem.

Obamacare will only make things worse.

Obamacare simply takes money out of Medicare and lavishes it on other programs, such as Medicaid. The original Congressional Budget Office estimate of the cost of the law was $940 billion over 10 years. Earlier this year, the agency revised its estimate to $1.8 trillion over the decade 2014 to 2023.

Rob the old to pay the poor.

But wait. The NEW cost estimate for Obamacare has DOUBLED?

This doesn't look good.