Van de Water Paul N
Medicare Brief. 2007 Apr(17):1-7.
Each year Medicare's Board of Trustees issues a report that describes the financial condition of the Medicare program in the near term and over the next 75 years. Similar to recent trustees reports, the 2007 report projects that Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be depleted in 2019, at which time scheduled income will cover 79 percent of expenditures. For the first time, the trustees have issued a "Medicare funding warning," which means that more than 45 percent of Medicare will be financed by general (non-dedicated) revenues within the next seven years. Looking at these projections, some observers contend that Medicare must be fundamentally restructured in order to put the program--and the overall federal budget--on a sound fiscal course. Others point out that Medicare spending has grown at about the same rate as spending for private health insurance and argue that it is impossible to limit spending on Medicare without also slowing the growth of private health care costs or abandoning equal access to care for the aged and disabled.
医疗保险受托人委员会每年都会发布一份报告，描述医疗保险计划在近期以及未来75年的财务状况。与近期的受托人报告类似，2007年的报告预计医疗保险的住院保险信托基金将于2019年耗尽，届时计划收入将覆盖79%的支出。受托人首次发布了“医疗保险资金警告”，这意味着在未来七年中，超过45%的医疗保险将由一般（非专用）收入提供资金。审视这些预测，一些观察家认为，医疗保险必须从根本上进行重组，以使该计划——以及整个联邦预算——走上稳健的财政道路。另一些人则指出，医疗保险支出的增长速度与私人医疗保险支出的增长速度大致相同，并认为如果不减缓私人医疗保健成本的增长或放弃老年人和残疾人平等的医疗服务机会，就不可能限制医疗保险支出。
