The Medicare and Social Security Hoax

By Dean Baker
BeatThePress.com

Friday 12 May 2006

Medicare and Social Security costs are projected to soar over the next decade as the baby boomers retire. Medicare and road maintenance costs are projected to soar over the next decade as the baby boomers retire.

Health care costs in the United States are out of control, with per capita health care costs rising at rate that is more than 2 percentage points more rapid than the rate of growth of per capita income. If this pattern continues, health care costs will have a devastating effect on the private economy and also on the federal budget because of government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The obvious policy response to the projections of exploding health care costs would be to find some way to fix the US health care system (no other country has a problem of the same magnitude). It is dishonest to portray the issue as a problem of aging - we can afford the costs associated with aging - the problem is our health care system.