Finances look worse for Medicare, Social Security

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The bad economy has shortened the life of the trust funds that support Social Security and Medicare, the nation’s two biggest benefit programs, the government reported Friday.

The annual checkup said the Medicare hospital insurance fund now will be exhausted in 2024, five years earlier than last year’s estimate. The Social Security trust fund is expected to be exhausted in 2036, one year earlier than before.

The trustees who oversee the two programs said the worsening financial picture emphasizes the need for Congress to make changes soon. The longer lawmakers wait, the more likely they will be forced to impose steep tax increases, deep benefit cuts, or both, to save the programs.

By acting sooner, the trustees said, Congress can impose gradual changes that don’t hurt current beneficiaries and give future retirees time to prepare.

“Larger, more-difficult adjustments will be necessary if we delay reform,” said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, chairman of the trustee panel. “And making reforms soon that are phased in over time would help reduce uncertainty about future retirement benefits.”

The trustees said that they moved the expected date for the Medicare hospital trust fund to be exhausted from 2029 to 2024 because of a weaker economy, which means fewer people working and paying payroll taxes into the fund, and continued increases in health-care costs.

Last year’s report had extended the life of the Medicare fund by 12 years to reflect the savings that were included in the massive overhaul of health care that President Barack Obama pushed Congress to pass in 2010. Without the changes in health-care law, the administration said, the Medicare trust fund would be exhausted in 2016.

The savings in the health-care legislation still are included in the trustees’ projections but have been updated to reflect data on the economy and health-care costs over the past year. Many experts believe that the outlook for Medicare is actually worse because the trustees’ projections assume deep cuts in payments to doctors that Congress routinely has waived, and because other cost savings from Obama’s health-care law will be difficult to realize.

The Social Security trust fund was projected to be exhausted one year earlier than the previous projection of 2037.

The trustees said in 2036 the government will be taking in enough in Social Security payroll taxes to pay only about three-fourths of existing benefits.

The new report projected that the millions of Social Security recipients would receive a small — 0.7 percent — cost-of-living increase in their benefit checks in 2012. In 2010 and 2011, there were no cost-of-living increases in the checks because inflation was low.

A 0.7 percent increase would not be seen by many beneficiaries because the extra money would be eaten up by higher insurance premium payments for Medicare. The actual benefit increase will be determined based on the performance of the government’s Consumer Price Index. That figure will be released in October.