As Congress continues to wrangle with lifting the debt ceiling and trying to pass trillions of dollars of more federal spending, there’s another problem looming on the horizon: Medicare funding.
Wendell Lenhart
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Due to increased enrollment by baby boomers, such as myself, and the increased cost of healthcare, funding for Medicare Part A, which pays for hospital care, will run out of funding within the next five years.
It will be interesting to see how our elected leaders approach a solution to this problem. It appears to me that the only solution to the problem will be to raise the tax rate that employers and employees pay or cut benefits to those enrolled in Medicare so they pay more out of pocket. Either solution, or a combination of both, is going to cause hardships for someone or everyone.
And this doesn’t even take into account the same looming problem coming with Social Security. It’s on the same runaway train but a few more years away from insolvency.
On top of these two crises, there are proposals in Congress to expand Medicare as part of the proposed $3 trillion plus infrastructure plan.
I have no confidence that Congress will do the right thing. They have continued to kick the can down the road about funding Medicare and making it a sustainable program because, although it is the right thing to do, it is a politically unpopular thing to do.
They will wait until the last minute to take any action on the problem and then blame each other for the outcome.
I have to agree with what Senator Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., said: “Spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Medicare and Social Security, is the definition of fiscal insanity.”
As the baby boomer generation continues to age each year, the numbers are just not going to add up. There will be more people enrolled in these programs than there will be working to pay the needed funds to keep them afloat.
I must confess that I didn’t pay complete attention in economics class when I was in college, but at some point the government cannot continue to spend more than it takes in without all of the deficit spending causing a major financial crisis. Just paying the interest on the outstanding debt continues to become an increasing part of the federal budget each year. And it has to be paid first, so it squeezes out spending for other programs.
I have a feeling that this is not going to end well and there are going be a lot of problems caused by our government continuing to spend more than it has.
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Speaking of Congress and Washington, D.C., I’m reminded of what former President Harry Truman said: “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.”