03 Apr 2006 Frist: Medicare Facing Collapse Unless Fundamentally Reformed

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) on Medicare, writing in the Detroit News:

With every passing year our nation’s health insurance programs for the elderly, disabled, and poor draw closer to a crisis point. Right now, transforming Medicare may help American industry more than anything else that government could do.The problem is stark. The Medicare program will run out of money sometime around 2020. At that point, the government would almost certainly need to cut benefits for all Medicare beneficiaries while raising taxes on every working American.

Without fundamental change, however, even this unpleasant course of action would only provide a temporary fix. The program would continue to expand as the ranks of retirees grow, and eventually, face total collapse…

Read the rest here.