“While health-care reformers call for ‘Medicare For All,’ in March the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPac) warned that unless Congress makes some hard decisions about how to contain health-care spending, Medicare won’t be able to sustain its current program — let alone expand coverage to the entire nation. The bad news is that MedPac is absolutely right. Last week, the Medicare Trust Fund released a report revealing that if Medicare continues spending at the current rate, it will hit a wall in twelve short years: At that point, the trust will be able to cover only 79 percent of Medicare’s costs.” [editor’s note: Yet another cogent analysis, by someone who has done the real legwork on this topic. If you haven’t yet read it, get Money Driven Medicine, her excellent overview of how we got into this mess! - SAT] (04/30/07)