The Biggest Threat To Medicare As We Know It Is Medicare As We Know It
“Based on the data from the Trustees’s Report and the CBO, the cost per capita of Medicare is expected to roughly double between now and 2040 and so is the number of enrollees,” writes Vernoique de Rugy. “Between 1975 and 2011, the number of Medicare enrollees doubled to 48 million, and the real cost per enrollee quintupled. By 2040, the Trustees calculate, the program will consume almost 6 percent of GDP, the cost will be nearly $21,000 for one beneficiary, and Medicare will cover about 88 million people.”
Here’s the chart:
Anyone who tells you that Medicare isn’t in trouble, that there isn’t a crisis, is lying to you. Or they don’t know how to do math.
So what can we do to fix this? There’s Paul Ryan’s plan which gives seniors the option of managing their own share of Medicare dollars, making their own health care and cost decisions.
Or there’s the Democrat plan, which amounts to something along the lines of “if you want to change Medicare you hate old people.”
Tags: election 2012, medicare, paul ryan
