Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Life Health > Health Insurance > Life Insurance Strategies

AAA: To Fix Medicare, Fix Health Care

By Staff Writer

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

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.

If the government managed to sustain the current rate of increase in Medicare spending until 2050, Medicare and Social Security together would consume about 80% of federal revenue in 2050, up from 40% in 2008, the AAA committee members warn.

“If we are to avoid this trend, reforms must be made to address the rapid growth in Medicare expenditures,” the committee members write.

“It is important to recognize that the problem of rising health care spending in the Medicare program reflects spending growth in the U.S. heath system as a whole,” the committee members conclude. “Therefore, unless spending in the health system as a whole is addressed, implementing options to control Medicare spending may have limited long-term effectiveness.”

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.