Sweeping Overhaul Will Save Medicare

By Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute The escalating political debate about the future of Medicare reveals a fear of change coupled with the growing recognition that change is essential to sustain the program for the future.

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Medicare is facing $38 trillion in red ink. The recent Medicare Trustees report showed the program is careening toward bankruptcy and will run out of money in 2024 - five years faster than the trustees predicted just one year ago. And to make it worse, the chief actuary for Medicare, Richard Foster, issued a dissenting opinion to the report, explaining that even those dire predictions are based upon politically unrealistic spending cuts that neither he nor anyone else expects to happen.

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