SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE WILL BE BROKE? WHAT A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM BROKE? NO SURPRISE THERE, EVERYBODY GETS A PAYMENT THAT'S WHY!

There is no surprise that another government program is broke. Every year we get the predictions, and no analysis just the financials. But let's examine what these programs which now cover about 50 million people really do.

One would think that the money is for retired folks, or those needing medical care when they retire, but of course since this is a government program guess what ? ALL TYPES OF NON-RETIRED folks can get payments from these programs. Even illegal aliens can get all types of payments.

So I wonder why it's going broke?

It may be doing better by buying some IBM or WAL-MART stock, but do you expect the government to actually think?

The financial outlook for Medicare and Social Security has significantly worsened, as the bad economy and mounting job losses have pushed both programs years closer to insolvency, according to a grim report issued Tuesday by the Obama administration.

The new projection, in an annual report from the programs’ trustees, says that Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund will be exhausted in 2017, just a year after President Obama would leave office if re-elected to a second term. Last year the trustees said they expected the fund to last until 2019.

The trustees also said that Social Security’s reserves now face depletion in 2037, four years sooner than the previous projection of 2041. The projections assume that there are no changes in current benefits, policies and tax rates.

The two programs, which serve more than 50 million people, are caught in a difficult dynamic linked largely to the recession: Millions fewer people are working and paying the taxes that support the programs; yet health care costs are continuing to soar, millions of baby boomers have begun receiving Social Security retirement benefits, and Americans are living longer.

Medicare expenses are now expected to surpass Social Security’s in 2028.

The report comes a day after President Obama embraced a pledge from health-care providers to slow the increase in their costs over the coming decade. The new projections will add to the urgency of controlling those costs.

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said in a statement on Tuesday that the new projections underscored the need for a bipartisan approach to shoring up the two programs, through what he said would be “difficult but achievable changes.”

“That is why even as this president has focused on pulling our nation out of economic recession, he has made clear his commitment to working in a bipartisan way to address the long-term health of Medicare and Social Security” and, he added, “not simply pass on our debts.”

The shorter deadline for Social Security insolvency does not mean that future retirees would receive nothing after that date.

The trustees noted that even when the Social Security trust fund is exhausted in 2037, tax revenues will presumably continue to come in. But benefits would be limited to the amount paid in that year, and would probably continue at only 75 percent of their promised level — 3 percentage points less than was projected in last year’s report.

The darker picture facing the two programs will complicate the president’s spending plans and policy ambitions; just Monday, the administration raised its estimate of the federal budget deficit this year to $1.84 trillion, the largest on record.

The House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, called last week for a bipartisan effort to fix Social Security’s long-term finances. Other Democratic leaders have been loath to take up the politically difficult issue now.

But it is the looming shortfall in the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund that the report calls “an urgent concern.”

“Correcting the financial imbalance for the H.I. Trust Fund — even in the short-range alone — will require substantial changes to program income and/or expenditures,” it says.

Right, this will be a problem solved by our politicians!

The trustees project adequate funding for a separate Medicare trust fund that pays doctors’ bills and other outpatient expenses, known as Part B. But it cautions that about one-fourth of Part B enrollees face “unusually large” premium increases in the next two years.

The standard Part B premium has already increased by 64 percent in the last five years.

Just imagine what the costs will be in the future? How much will they take out of a paycheck ?

Currently there is an equal deduction for these benefits paid by the employee and then a same amount by the employer...so it is actually about 15% plus, how can a country support such a system, when at these confiscatory rates, it may have to increase to 25% in the future.

The best option is to privatize it, insure it and get the rates down to provide a real retirement benefit, not just unfunded future mandates that are NOT limited to retiree benefits.