Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times claims that we’re “looking at the biggest story involving the federal budget and a crucial one for the future of the American economy. Every year for the last six years in a row, the Congressional Budget Office has reduced its estimate for how much the federal government will need to spend on Medicare in coming years. The latest reduction came in a report from the budget office.”
“The changes are big. The difference between the current estimate for Medicare’s 2019 budget and the estimate for the 2019 budget four years ago is about $95 billion. The country still faces a projected deficit in future decades … but it is not likely to require the level of fiscal pain that many assumed several years ago.”
“In all, technical changes have been responsible for a 12 percent reduction since 2010 in the estimates for Medicare spending over the decade ending in 2020. In dollar terms, that’s over $700 billion.”
Medicaid spending is also down, according to Kaiser Health News: “Medicaid spending is expected to drop by $40 billion — or about 1 percent — over the next decade.”
Via The Wonk Wire.
