SS, HI Trustees’ reports confirm … what?

The future cost outlook of Social Security and Medicare lookedslightly better in the 2008 report from the programs’ trustees releasedtoday, but the long-term financial viability of the benefit programswas just as problematic.  ‘The Social Security program isfinancially unsustainable and requires reform’, said Treasury SecretaryHenry Paulson, who is one of the trustees. And, just as it did lastyear, ‘the Medicare program poses a far greater financial challengethan Social Security’. Medicare begins to run out ofmoney much faster than Social Security does. Its basic HospitalInsurance trust fund is projected to start having a negative cash flowthis year, assets are expected to fall below annual spending by 2013and the trust fund should be exhausted in 2019.  Those are thesame dates projected in the 2007 trustees’ report. The variousexpiration dates for Social Security are much farther in the future,but also unchanged in the 2008 report.  Social Security tax revenue will fall below outlays in 2017 and the trust fund itself will run out in 2041.  The one improvement the outlook noted by the trustees this year is thatthe combined cost of Social Security and Medicare, which was about 7.5pct of the US GDP last year, is now projected to reach 16.6 pct of GDPin 2082, down from 17.6 pct in last year’s forecast.

Source: Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2008/03/25/afx4813006.html

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Clinton:  None
McCain:  None
Obama:  None