If the federal government fails to reform our health finance system, Medicare alone could consume about 8.4% of U.S. gross domestic product by 2050.
Members of the Medicare Steering Committee at the American Academy of Actuaries, Washington, have published that figure in a review of the 2008 Medicare trustees’ report.
The Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund is expected to go broke in 2019, and the 2008 trustees’ report, released earlier this week, suggests that the fund will become insolvent slightly earlier than the trustees predicted in the 2007 Medicare trustees’ report, the AAA committee members write.