Medicare Is Broke But the Dems Want to Expand It

They peddle Medicare-for-All but won’t fund the current program for the elderly.

David Catron June 7, 2018

On Tuesday the Democrats received an unpleasant reality check. The California primaries, which they believed would provide the impetus for a nationwide “blue wave” destined to drown the GOP’s congressional majorities, left them pathetically grateful not to be locked out of key races in November. One of the rocks upon which their electoral fantasies foundered was their irresponsible support of Medicare-for-All, a single-payer health care plan that would dramatically expand a government program that is already on the verge of bankruptcy. The just-released Medicare Trustees report indicates that the traditional program for the elderly will go broke in less than ten years:

The estimated depletion date for the HI [Hospital Insurance] trust fund is 2026, 3 years earlier than in last year’s report. As in past years, the Trustees have determined that the fund is not adequately financed over the next 10 years … The Trustees recommend that Congress and the executive branch work closely together with a sense of urgency to address the depletion of the HI trust fund.

This is not a complicated message. It obviously means that, if Congress doesn’t address this issue adequately and quickly, there will be fiscal hell to pay. Yet the Democrats not only refuse to consider any sort of sensible Medicare reform program, they compound this negligence by vilifying anyone who comes up with such a plan. They render this outrageous behavior even worse by peddling the implausible lie that the soon-to-be insolvent Medicare can somehow be converted from a program that covers about 50 million people into a single payer system that provides all Americans with health care. And it’s not just a few barmy backbenchers that peddle this BS. It’s the party’s “leaders.”........To Read More.....