• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Galen Institute

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Mission and History
    • Grace-Marie Turner bio
    • Who was Galen?
  • Activities
    • Core Activities
    • Commentary and Oped Tutorial
    • Our Book
    • Galen Guides
  • Contact Us
  • Major Papers
  • Broadcast Interviews
  • Health Policy Consensus Group

Status Quo is Sending Medicare Over the Cliff

POSTED BY Galen Institute on April 26, 2012.

The latest Medicare trustees’ report inconclusively demonstrates that Medicare is going broke.  Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin and former House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle explain in a post for National Review Online what it would have taken for Medicare to have had a positive cash flow in 2011.

If the program had not been able to draw on general revenues from the Federal government – thereby, adding to the budget deficit – huge tax and premium increases would have been required.

Holtz-Eakin and Nussle offer specifics:

  •  For Medicare Part A (which pays hospital costs), the cash deficit was $61 billion.

    To balance this deficit, payroll taxes on employers and workers would have to have been increased by 31 percent.

  •  For Medicare Part B (which pays physicians), the cash shortfall was $168 billion.

    To balance this deficit, seniors’ physician premiums would need to increase by 392 percent.  This means the annual physician premium cost to seniors would have risen from $1,198 to $4,687 — an increase of $3,499.

  •  For Medicare Part D (prescription drugs), the cash shortfall was more than $59 billion.

    To balance this deficit, seniors’ premiums for prescription drug plans would need to increase by 871 percent, meaning the annual drug-premium cost to seniors would rise from $372 to $3,250 — an increase of $2,878.

It is clear that the current path of Medicare spending is bankrupting our country.  The status quo is simply not an option.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Primary Sidebar

Our Annual Report

Health Care Choices 20/20:

A Vision for the Future

SEARCH

LATEST NEWSLETTER ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE

Social Media

Like Us On Facebook

Twitter: @galeninstitute

 

Copyright Galen Institute at Donors. © 2023; · Log in