Seven Years and Counting…

Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (HI) will be depleted in seven years — three years sooner than forecast previously, according to the 2018 Annual Report of the Medicare Boards of Trustees. By 2026, Medicare Part A, which covers hospital payments, will be running a $52 billion annual deficit, a gap that will increase rapidly in successive years.

The forecast is based upon implementation of current policy and makes a variety of assumptions regarding employment, growth of payroll tax receipts, and hospital costs that may or may not be on target. However, the trustees note, shorter-term projections are more likely to be accurate than longer-term projects — and seven years is not that far away.

The trustees’ report triggers a formal Medicare funding warning. President Trump must submit to Congress proposed legislation to respond to the warning within 15 days after submission of the FY 2020 budget. Congress is then required to consider the legislation on an expedited basis.

The political problem is that successive Congresses and presidential administrations have kicked the can down the road for so long that any fix will be politically painful. Rather than phasing in remedies over time, allowing a smoother glide path to solvency and making it easier for affected parties to adapt, Congress will have to enact dramatic remedies…. unless it decides to kick the can down the road again, perhaps by funding the Medicare HI  gap with general revenues.

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent forecast, the federal government is on track to be running a $1.076 trillion budget deficit by 2026. Maybe Congress will say, what the heck, what’s another $52 billion, let’s fund the HI deficit with borrowed dollars. But maybe it won’t. If there’s another recession between now and then, the fiscal outlook could be a lot more alarming than it is today.

Winter is coming. Reforming the federal government is hopeless. Virginia’s only hope is maintaining a fiscally robust state and local government.