Medicare Will Be Bankrupt By 2002?

The US Coalition to Save Medicare has said that statements made by Congressmen Sam Gibbons and Pete Stark have played down the real crisis facing the Medicare system.

According to the Coalition, a non-partisan source - the Medicare Board of Trustees, including four officials of the Clinton administration, has warned that next year for the first time Medicare's hospital trust fund will pay out more than its makes in a year, and that by the year 2002 it will be bankrupt.

Public Medicare trustee David Walker said: "many people looked at the 1995 report and gained a false sense of security" because the projected date of insolvency for the hospital trust fund was pushed back from 2001 to 2002, and that "something has to be done about the costs" as the program is "unsustainable in its present form." Mr Walker has indicated that he would like to see the American public educated to understand the nature of the Medicare situation "to [help] assure the long-term financial integrity of this program."