SocSec, Medicare On Track to Bankruptcy In a Decade: Trustees

Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in just over a decade, a new report warned Monday, putting fresh pressure on Congress to address the nation’s financial health as federal debt rises and the population ages.

The trustees for the massive retirement programs project that Social Security will be insolvent by 2035, and Medicare by 2036, which would force benefit cuts. That’s better than many experts had expected, though — last year, federal actuaries said the programs could go belly-up sooner. The report said the roaring job market and low unemployment rate means more workers are contributing to the programs, shoring up their finances even while record numbers of retirees enroll for benefits.

But that improvement may not last and can’t change an overall bleak picture, the trustees said, and Congress still must act to stabilize the programs to prevent cutting off benefits from tens of millions of seniors or plunging the nation into insurmountable debt.

Ed Morrissey

Neither party will do anything about it, either. They have both made it a toxic topic, with shrieking hysteria about grandmas getting pushed off cliffs. The fact is that we have overpromised and vastly underfunded both programs. The unfunded liabilities for both, especially Medicare, are gargantuan and growing.

The only way to save these programs is to get realistic about life spans and benefit payments, plus restructure them for more rational benefits. Even with national debt reaching crisis levels, though, there simply is no political will in DC for approaching this with even a lick of honesty or common sense.

SocSec, Medicare On Track to Bankruptcy In a Decade: Trustees

Ed Morrissey

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SocSec, Medicare On Track to Bankruptcy In a Decade: Trustees

Ed Morrissey

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