Forget Your Financial Problems Go Buy a New Car

 

Here is an excerpt from a portion of the report from the Medicare Trustees

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Contact: CMS Office of Media Relations (202) 690-6145

Medicare Trustees Report Shows Serious Financial Status of Medicare Program

 

In their annual report, the Medicare Trustees today announced that both the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund and the Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund expenditures are growing faster than the rest of the economy. The Trustees report expenditures were $432 billion in 2007, or 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and are projected to increase to nearly 11 percent of GDP in 75 years.

The Trustees report that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will become insolvent earlier in 2019 than reported last year. HI expenditure growth is estimated to average 7.4 percent each year over the next 10 years, a higher rate than either Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Consumer Price Index (CPI) growth. This year the HI Trust Fund will spend more than its income, and from 2009 through 2017, about $342 billion will need to be transferred from the Federal treasury to cover beneficiaries’ hospital insurance costs.

“We need to act quickly and effectively to address Medicare’s fiscal health, including enacting the steps proposed in the President’s budget, which would postpone the insolvency date of the Part A trust fund for ten years,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. “Congress should also act immediately on the smart changes put forward by the Administration after last year’s funding warning, which would allow the program to be modernized and transformed.”

Do you think there is a problem?  Of course, this was the assessment of the previous administration.  Today, it appears that this is not so relevant because the President is proposing cuts in Medicare, mostly cuts in payments to hospitals and other providers and cuts in payments under the Part D prescription drug program to correct the problem…

but wait, it is a different problem the President is attacking.  President Obama is proposing these cuts to find money to spend on health care reform and government involvement in health care for all Americans.  Who is doing this math anyway?

Here is how it can work for you.  Take that credit card debt you are loaded down with, and then take a serious look at your expenses.  Lucky you, you find money you can save and put toward your debt.  Heck no, take the money you save and go buy a new car.