Is Medicare worth saving?

[jeff47]

33. Wow are you wrong

Only Medicare Part A - hospital has a fund.

/headdesk

http://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11396.pdf

There are two medicare funds. B and D are funded by the second one.

That will become insolvent in 2024.

/headdesk

Only if you believe medical costs will continue to grow so that they consume more than 40% of our GDP by then.

I have a very hard time believing that will happen.

You could say medicare part b and d is being funded by the Chinese and Japanese.

/headdesk

Who actually buys our debt? We do. The vast majority of US debt is owed to US people, US corporations and other US entities. We don't have to sell our debt only to other countries.

China is the largest non-US holder of US debt, but their share is small and dropping - China only bought US debt to shore up the Dollar vs. the Yuan so that "cheap Chinese goods" would remain cheap. But that's like stopping the flow of a river by using a bucket to carry the water back uphill. Eventually, there's too much water to keep up. So China's no longer buying massive amounts of US debt.