Trustees: Medicare Hospital Fund Extended 12 Years

[Russ]

Here's some good news....AP News : NWFDailynews.com

 

[somarco]

And some bad news . . .

But officials cautioned Thursday that the gain will depend on achieving significant savings in health care in coming years.

and

achieving the health care savings needed to extend the life of the Medicare trust fund "may prove difficult and will probably require that payment and health care delivery systems be made more efficient than they are currently."

And the Trust Fund, kept in a hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnall's porch . . .

The trust fund, which exists in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va., are bonds backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That trust fund, currently at $2.5 trillion, has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government.

To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government will have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, another trustee, told reporters that the trustees assumed current law in making their projections, including a cut in doctor's Medicare payments of 23 percent starting in December.

Yeah, like that will work . . .

 

[Ron Van D]

Here's some good news....AP News : NWFDailynews.com

Where?

The report noted that achieving the health care savings needed to extend the life of the Medicare trust fund "may prove difficult and will probably require that payment and health care delivery systems be made more efficient than they are currently."

A companion report concluded that some of the $575 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years "may be unrealistic" because future Congresses could be pressured to roll back cuts to providers in the health care law.