When will this pending train wreck classify as a crisis? The bad news isn't new, but the problem has been put off for years because no federal politician, George Bush excluded, would even touch this third rail of politics. Years of warnings by the former Comptroller General of the U.S., David Walker, went unheeded.
Many Congresses have fiddled while Rome is burning. The siren's call of universal coverage, much more appealing to the voters they were courting has masked the real problem...the run up in costs. Medicare and health care costs have long been out of control. No wonder yesterday's announcement by the health care industry of their 'intent' to reduce the growth in costs by 1.5% annually.
I have here said previously that the only real way to control costs is to ration care. No one wants to hear it, but that's the truth of the matter. Health care, like the State of Vermont's Legislature has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
In Vermont for example, health care is now the third largest contributor to the gross state product, exceeded only by government (#1) and manufacturing (#2)
"...As a result, the administration said, the Medicare fund that pays hospital bills for older Americans is expected to run out of money in 2017, two years sooner than projected last year. The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than predicted, it said.
Spending on Social Security and Medicare totaled more than $1 trillion last year, accounting for more than one-third of the federal budget...."
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