Baby boomers skyrocket costs to $1 trillion/year by 2020
While the Obama administration very quietly backed off making end-of-life consultations party of the annual Medicare doctor-patient discussion, the coming swell of baby boomers leaves little doubt that Medicare will be able to continue operating unless government-paid health-care services are rationed, as the largest number of seniors ever to retire in America begins retiring this year.
"It's been a long, strange trip from Woodstock to the nursing home, but baby boomers are getting there - and soon," wrote Health Day reporter Amanda Gardner in Bloomberg Businessweek.
In 2011, the first round of baby boomers born in 1946 begins turning 65 and qualifying for Medicare, at a rate of approximately one every eight seconds.
In total, approximately 76 million baby boomers are expected to go on Medicare, with the result that Medicare will grow from 47 million today to 80 million in 2030, even factoring in death rates over that period, USA Today reported.
At the same time, health-care costs are expected to accelerate in coming years, with the result that Medicare is projected to cost nearly $1 trillion a year by 2020, an 80 percent increase over today.
Not enough doctors
According to Dr. Bruce Koeppen, founding dean of Quinnipiac University School of Medicine in Hamden, Conn., the problem is also that 40 percent of physicians themselves are approaching retirement and are becoming eligible for Medicare.
According to the American Geriatrics Society, there are now 7,029 board-certified geriatricians in the United States, or about one for every 2,699 Americans aged 75 or older, Gardner reported in her article. But that ratio is expected to drop to one geriatrician per 5,549 seniors by 2030.
Obamacare is also certain to produce a shortage among primary-care givers in health services as millions of Americans are instructed they have an entitlement "right" to government-paid medical care.
Even today, many physicians in private practice do not take Medicare patients because it's not profitable to do so.
This situation is certain to become even worse if Obamacare results in the 2011 cuts to Medicare that are called for in the legislation.
Medicare faces trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations
WND has also reported that the true negative net worth of the federal government was $70.7 trillion in 2009, largely because of unfunded obligations in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In other words, the total U.S. obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits to be paid in the future, have effectively placed the U.S. government in bankruptcy, even before we take into consideration any future and continuing social welfare obligations that may be embedded within the Obama administration's planned massive overhaul of health care.
Under cash accounting, the government makes no provisions for the future Social Security and Medicare benefits in the year in which those benefits accrue.
The approximately 76 million U.S. children born between 1945 and 1964 represent some 28 percent of the U.S. population.
"Simply said, holding revenues constant, required Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending and the related deficit financing costs will far exceed the Government's ability to pay," the Citizens' Guide to the 2007 Financial Report of the United States Government concluded.
The Congressional Budget Office notes that in 2010, 21 percent of federal spending went to Medicare and Medicaid, with the expectation that 31 percent of the federal budget will be spent on the two programs by 2020, as reported by CBS MoneyWatch.com.
The problem is that there is no end in sight
The CBO also estimates that spending on Medicare and Medicaid will grow from 7 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2020 to 12 percent in 2050.
Even with Medicare, retirees will need substantial personal financial resources to cover medical-care costs.
The Employee Benefit Research Institute has estimated that to have a 90 percent chance of having enough savings to cover health costs in retirement, a man would need $211,000 in personal savings that can be applied to cover health costs and a woman would need $242,000, if no former employer were available to subsidize private health insurance to supplement Medicare in retirement.
By Dr. Jerome Corsi
(c) 2010 RedAlert.WND.com
Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jerome R. Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling books THE OBAMA NATION: LEFTIST POLITICS AND THE CULT OF PERSONALITY and the co-author of UNFIT FOR COMMAND: SWIFT BOAT VETERANS SPEAK OUT AGAINST JOHN KERRY. He is also the author of AMERICA FOR SALE, THE LATE GREAT U.S.A., and WHY ISRAEL CAN'T WAIT. Currently, Dr. Corsi is a Senior Managing Director in the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities as well as a senior staff writer for WorldNetDaily.com.
ABOUT GILFORD SECURITIES: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients. From investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth management services, our financial experts are prepared to accommodate the needs of investors. For more information about Gilford Securities please visit, Click Here: http://www.gilfordsecurities.com/financial-services-group.php
The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.
ABOUT RED ALERT: Jerome Corsi's RED ALERT is your weekly, global financial strategies newsletter. Designed to be your guide to economic trends in the best of times and the worst of times, it is edited by New York Times best-selling author Jerome Corsi, Senior Managing Director of the Financial Services Group at Gilford Securities as well as a WND senior staff writer and columnist. For 25 years, Corsi worked with banks throughout the U.S. and the world developing financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. Corsi developed three third-party financial services marketing firms that reached annual gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. Corsi received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University in 1972.
No comments:
Post a Comment