Roll Call - Higher health care costs and a law Congress passed last year to boost retirement benefits for public sector workers worsened the long-term outlook of Social Security and Medicare trust funds, according to annual reports released Wednesday by the programs’ trustees.
The trust funds for Medicare and Social Security benefits would be depleted faster than expected compared to last year’s estimates, losing the ability to provide full benefits to retirees in some cases years earlier than previously projected.
The Hospital Trust Fund will only be able to pay 100 percent of scheduled benefits until 2033, three years earlier than the trustees reported last year, according to the trustee report. After that point, the program will only be able to pay 89 percent of total scheduled benefits, a summary says.
The change is due to higher-than-expected spending on hospital and hospice care in 2024. The trustees increased future projected spending to account for that growth, including more spending for inpatient and hospice services in the early years of the projection.
The trustees have sounded the alarm on the Hospital Trust Fund for years, though the warnings have mostly been ignored by Congress, which views Medicare reform as politically challenging....
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