Thursday, July 13, 2017

What You Need to Know about Today’s Medicare Trustees Report

Insolvency Date:  The insolvency date for the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is 2029, one year later than last year’s report. However, remember that, if not for the double-counting in Obamacare (about which see more below), the Trust Fund would ALREADY be insolvent, as in 2009 — the last trustees report prior to Obamacare’s enactment — the trustees projected insolvency for 2017 (i.e., this year).

IPAB NOT Triggered:  Despite prior predictions, this year’s trustees report did NOT trigger a reporting requirement related to the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). In other words, Medicare spending over the relevant five year period (2015 through 2019) is not projected to exceed the per capita caps established for Medicare in Obamacare itself. Which makes one wonder — if per capita caps for Medicare haven’t yet bit, why are liberals objecting so loudly to per capita caps for Medicaid…?

A Brief Break from Massive Deficits:  For the first time in nearly a decade, the Medicare Part A Trust Fund did NOT run a deficit. However, the small $5.4 billion surplus did not even begin to overcome the $132.2 billion in deficits run by the Medicare program from 2008 through 2015.

Funding Warning:  For the first time since 2013, the trustees issued a funding warning showing that the Medicare program is taking a disproportionate share of its funding from general revenues, thus crowding out programs like defense and education. If a second warning is issued next year, the President will be required to submit legislation to Congress remedying the problem.

Unrealistic Assumptions:  As it has every year since the passage of Obamacare, the trustees issued an alternative scenario, because “absent an unprecedented change in health care delivery systems,” the payment reductions included in Obamacare mean that “access to, and delivery of, Medicare benefits would deteriorate over time for beneficiaries.”

Double Counting:  The actuary also previously confirmed that the Medicare reductions in Obamacare “cannot be simultaneously used to finance other federal outlays and to extend the [Medicare] trust fund” solvency date – rendering dubious any potential claims that Obamacare will extend Medicare’s solvency.  As Nancy Pelosi previously admitted, Democrats “took a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in [Obamacare], the health care bill” – and you can’t improve Medicare’s solvency by taking money out of the program.