US treasury and Senate say now is the time to address future Medicare cash shortage
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Medicare's financial outlook has weakened over the last year, due to higher-than-expected spending for skilled nursing facility services and home healthcare services, but has not been hurt at all by the addition of a new prescription drug plan, according to the Medicare Trustees annual report, released yesterday. In 2005, Medicare provided coverage to 42.5 million people, spending $330bn on benefits.