Is Medicare Really Going Broke, Like Paul Ryan Says?

Our eyebrows went up when we saw this quote from Ryan. It has been a bipartisan fallacy to claim that the old-age health program Medicare is going “broke,” which is incorrect for the reasons outlined below. But what was notable was he specifically blamed the Affordable Care Act for making Medicare go broke. That’s doubly wrong. Let’s explain.

Key Takeaways:

• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute, calculates that Medicare will represent 15% of the 2016 federal budget, and projects that share to grow to 20% by 2036.
• The Medicare trustees project that the Part A trust fund, which pays for hospital costs, will be depleted in 2028 if no changes are made to rein in costs or increase funding.
• This spike will crowd out spending on other priorities, such as early education, infrastructure and defense.

“Total Medicare expenditures were $648 billion in 2015, according to the 2016 Medicare trustees’ report.”

http://time.com/money/4572077/paul-ryan-is-medicare-really-going-broke/