'Is Medicare Really Going Bankrupt? Definitely Not'

Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review catches CNN getting something right:

Medicare ‘bankruptcy’: CNN gets it right, by Trudy Lieberman: Hooray for CNN.com, for fact checking the often-heard claim of Medicare’s “impending” bankruptcy. CNN’s contribution sets a high bar...

The “bankruptcy” language comes up a lot. ... But is Medicare really going bankrupt? Definitely not, says CNN. The network is correct, and the point is crucial.

How did CNN pull away from the fact-checking pack on this one? ... First, CNN reported, as CJR has urged news outlets to do, that only one part of Medicare is in potential trouble—the Hospital Trust Fund, which is financed by payroll taxes. The other parts of Medicare, including Part B, which finances doctor visits, lab tests, and outpatient services, “are adequately financed for now,” Medicare trustees have said. ...

CNN pushed further and asked a logical question that most reporters writing about Medicare have missed. When the magic date for “bankruptcy” arrives—2024 according to the Dems, or 2016 if the ACA disappears in a Romney presidency—would Medicare really disappear? Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy expert at the University of North Carolina, told CNN that ... “Medicare is not going bankrupt. Medicare would still have most of the necessary funds to pay those expenses and other parts of the program would be unaffected. Medicare won’t go bankrupt in the literal sense in 2016 or 2024 or 2064—or ever.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the Medicare program, said this year that even in 2024 the Medicare hospital trust fund could still pay 87 percent of its estimated expenditures, and noted that, “in practice, Congress has never allowed a Medicare trust fund to exhaust its assets.” ...

That’s not to say that Medicare’s cost explosion is not a problem. How to control cost—not just for Medicare but for al the rest of the healthcare system, too—is a central issue that the press needs to clarify. ...