The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Editorials

Related Photos

  • ed2-5.jpg

    ed2-5.jpg

February 4, 2010

Our View: Health care costs keep rising

The Free Press

MANKATO — New estimates that federal health care programs will account for more than half of all health care spending in the U.S. should raise another red flag about the dangerous path we are going down.

Federal government actuaries in a recent report predicted the weak economy will boost demand for federal health care programs for the poor and others while private insurance growth slows.

Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration and other health care programs are projected to make up over 50.4 percent of all health care spending by 2011. The bad news is that last year, actuaries didn’t think government health care spending would rise above 50 percent of total health care spending until 2016.

In 2008, taxpayers paid 47 percent of the $2.34 trillion total health care spending for government health care programs. By 2020, experts predict health care spending will be 20 percent of all U.S. spending.

A former top Medicare official in the Bush administration told The Wall Street Journal such federal expenses are going to be a “desperate” situation five or 10 years out. Gail Wilensky said the U.S. will then have to decide between raising revenue to pay for Medicare or cutting benefits.

More and more, we must realize that we face some very difficult choices. The problem with reining in Medicare and Medicaid is that they are part of the budget that is “mandatory.” The rules for eligibility are already in place. So when more people qualify, as many will in a recession, the spending goes up automatically.

To stop this kind of automatic budget hemorrhage, elected leaders would have to cut eligibility and risk offending large voting blocks of their constituents. That’s why Medicare spending has been so difficult to curtail in the past.

Medicaid, the program for the poor, is in the same boat. Total expenses rise even if how much one gets stays frozen if more people qualify. Enrollment in that program is expected to rise 5.6 percent this year with spending rising 8.9 percent.

It should be more clear to health care reform opponents that the status quo isn’t sustainable. There will be a point of reckoning far more severe if we wait to solve these problems than if we tackle them now.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Editorials