US Federal Reserve chief warns of Medicare "crisis"

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned of a "fiscal crisis," triggered by the rising cost of unfunded entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. In a statement to the Senate budget committee, which coincided with reports of a rise in the US inflation rate, Mr Bernanke described the health care government programs as a "much bigger problem than Social Security," the retirement fund which faces a shortfall as "baby-boomers," people born between 1945 and the mid-1960s, reach retirement age while fewer people enter the workforce to pay for them.

However, the Federal Reserve Chairman is wrong to warn of a "crisis" in the country's health entitlement programs, according to Democrat public relations expert Robert Weiner. He argues that the excess numbers of elderly benefit claimants will be off-set by the smaller numbers requiring other government benefits. "This low birth rate will also then represent the lowest drain on the Social Security Trust Fund ever," Mr Weiner said, adding that "what we really have is a solvable 'blip' followed by a totally secure system."

Mr Weiner did not elaborate on measures to deal with the "temporary" shorthfall, although he noted that "the Administration has trial-ballooned Social Security 'reform' before and gotten burned each time - the American people have properly rejected it."