What They Hoped You Didn’t Notice
Chris Jacobs has dug these nuggets out of the latest Medicare Trustees Report:
- Medicare’s cash flow deficit of more than $32 billion is the largest ever, both in absolute dollar terms and in percentage of taxable payroll.
- The health care law’s “high-income” tax is NOT intended for inflation. Last year’s report found that the “high-income” tax will affect only 3 percent of taxpayers in 2013 (when it takes effect), but a whopping 79 percent of taxpayers by 2080.
- Enrollment in employer-sponsored retiree drug plans will drop from 6.8 million last year to a mere 800,000 by 2016 – a drop of nearly 90%.
- Millions of seniors will lose their current Medicare Advantage plans. However, thanks to the recent waiver announced by the Administration, enrollment in Medicare Advantage will not begin falling until 2013 – i.e., after the President has completed his re-election campaign.
- Most seniors’ Social Security COLAs in 2012 are projected to be entirely consumed by the rise in Medicare Part B premiums.
You are really trying to depress us today aren’t you?
This whole thiing is a great tragedy.
The fact that Medicare is running a deficit is important. The news reports keep talking about when Medicare is going to run out of money. It’s already out of money to cover its expenses. In a pay-as-you-go system trust funds are just IOUs the government writes to itself. The only thing that matters in such a sytem is cash flow. And the cash flow is negative.
I hadn’t noticed, but thanks for pointing all this out. And I agree, it is depressing.
Before the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 created Medicare Part D drug plans, only about one-third of seniors did not have drug coverage. If the prediction that retiree drug plans will shrink by nearly 90% is true, it’s another example of how a government program can crowd out private coverage.
The health care law’s “high-income” tax is NOT
intendedindexed for inflation.Here is the Goodman/Saving Wall Street Journal editorial on this subject in today’s paper:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576345732775990392.html?mod=googlenews_wsj