The Congressional Budget Office released a report last month that probably would have gotten attention were the nation not in the middle of a pandemic and a presidential election.
The CBO now expects Medicare Part A — the part of the program that pays for hospital care for seniors — to become insolvent by 2024, two years earlier than previously expected. That’s the closest to insolvency Medicare has been since 1971 its trustees projected a two-year insolvency window.
The pandemic and the resulting economic impact are largely the reason for Medicare’s diminished financial outlook. Payroll tax revenue, which flows into the hospital trust fund, has taken a nose dive amid widespread layoffs, yet the Medicare population is expected to continue growing at the same rate.
