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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 19, 2006 / 21 Iyar, 5766

Medicare's financial problems deepen, Trustees say — Fund could bedepleted by 2018

By Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak

The Medicine Men
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | According to the annual report released May 1, the Medicare trust fund will be depleted by 2018, two years sooner than predicted a year ago and 12 years sooner than anticipated when President Bush took office. So warns a "News of the Day ... In Perspective" release on May 6, 2006 from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.


The Medicare and Social Security programs "form the basis of a looming fiscal crisis for our nation as the baby-boom generation moves into retirement," said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, one of the trustees.


Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) called for the resignation of public trustees Tom Saving and John Palmer, reappointed by President Bush during Easter recess to avoid the need for Senate confirmation (Wash Post 5/2/06).


Saving and Palmer are credited with changing the Trustees report to include annual updates on the value of the unfunded liabilities.


This year, the combined Social Security/Medicare unfunded obligations reached $36.7 trillion on a 75-year horizon and $83.9 trillion on an infinite horizon. These figures were not included in handouts provided during a briefing on the report, according to John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Trustees also reported that in 2006, 12.3% of federal income tax revenues will be transferred to support Medicare; Social Security still has an excess amounting to 5.3% of income tax revenue. If present trends were to continue, Medicare alone would absorb 74.8% of income tax revenue by 2080, and Social Security 17.0%.


As part of the Medicare Modernization Act, the Trustees are required to compare overall projected Medicare expenditures with the program's "dedicated revenues." If the difference is projected to exceed 45% of the revenues within the first seven years of the projection period, it triggers a determination of "excess general revenue Medicare funding." A second such determination in 2007 would trigger a "Medicare funding warning."


This year is the first to trigger the determination. If it occurs again next year, Congress will be required to consider action on a expedited basis, but won't actually have to do anything.


The provision was intended to cap the amount of general revenues that could be used to support Medicare. According to a New York Times May 4 editorial, such a cap is "a perverse way to deal with Medicare's very real financial problems," because it "removes the most progressive source of funding from further consideration."

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President Bush proposes to create a federal commission on the plight of entitlement programs and to slow Medicare spending by $36 billion over the next five years.


Comments Jane Orient, M.D. Executive Director of AAPS, "If the hospital "trust fund" for our single-payer Medicare program for the elderly is going to be insolvent by 2018, and is slated to devour most of the federal treasury soon thereafter, how can we possibly fund universal single-payer health insurance for everybody?


We've reached the conclusion that the United States is now like an individual or business that has gone so deeply into debt, it knows the money will never be repaid. So why bother being responsible anymore? Just let the final collapse come after our time, and let the decline be gradual. Unfortunately, the decline won't be gradual, and when it comes will be like falling off a cliff. And our indebtedness for medical care is just giving the rest of the world more weapons to use against us.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here.

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