Medical costs eat at Social Security

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http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20040914/1a_lede14_dom.art.htm

Medical costs eat at Social Security
Health expenses leave less and less of checks
By William M. Welch USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — With a new Medicare drug benefit set to begin in 2006, Americans 65 and older can expect to spend a large and growing share of their Social Security checks on Medicare premiums and expenses, previously undisclosed federal data show.

Information the Bush administration excluded from its 2004 report on the Medicare program shows that a typical 65-year-old can expect to spend 37% of his or her Social Security income on Medicare premiums, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses in 2006. That share is projected to grow to almost 40% in 2011 and nearly 50% by 2021.

Unless Congress does something to hold down costs confronting seniors, the official projections suggest that health spending will consume virtually the entire amount of Social Security benefits when children born today reach retirement age.

The table was provided by the Department of Health and Human Services at the request of Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif. Stark, who opposed the drug benefit enacted last year at President Bush's urging, sought the data after noticing that a chart included in previous annual reports was not in the 2004 version.

Stark charged that the administration threw out the chart because it shows future Medicare costs under the new law will erode Social Security checks. <snip>