This week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Medicare Trustees Report for 2012. The Medicare Board of Trustees was established under the Social Security Act to oversee the financial operations of the hospital insurance (HI) (Part A) and supplemental medical insurance (SMI) (Parts B and D) trust funds. Given various uncertainties outlined in the report, future Medicare costs could be substantially larger than shown in the Trustees’ current-law projections.
In 2011, 48.7 million people were covered by Medicare: 40.4 million aged 65 and older, and 8.3 million disabled.
The estimated exhaustion date for the HI trust fund remains at 2024, the same year shown 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 report concludes in the overview that Congress and the executive branch must work closely together with a sense of urgency to address the exhaustion of the HI trust fund and the growth in HI, SMI Part B, and SMI Part D expenditures.