February 13, 2005

Medicare resurfaces as entitlement titan | csmonitor.com

Medicare is the grandaddy of entitlement programs. Combined with Medicaid and Social Security, we are heading for a crisis if we can't get health care costs under control. Controlling costs is essential, but terribly tough, but personal responsibility for health expenditures is key. An attempt at this has begun with Health Savings Accounts. We need to watch closely how these are working.

"Consider these numbers circulating on Capitol Hill: If current expectations about the role of government hold, American taxpayers face a "fiscal exposure" of at least $43 trillion over the next 75 years, including $3.7 trillion from Social Security and $27 trillion from Medicare, according to the US Government Accountability Office."

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