WASHINGTON, May 31 (Reuters) - Slower growth in U.S. healthcare costs improved the budget outlook for the Medicare program for the elderly from last year, but the fortunes of the Social Security pension program have not changed despite a better economy, trustees of the programs said on Friday.
Cristina Boccuti, a researcher at the Urban Institute, and Marilyn Moon, a former public trustee of the Medicare program, said Medicare spending grew more slowly than private health insurance costs from 1970 to 2000.
Marilyn Moon, a health economist and former trustee of the Medicare program, said that "you have to be vigilant" in cutting Medicare payments to health care providers because "there is no bright line" between cuts that affect beneficiaries and those that affect only providers.
Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, a trustee of the two programs, said Social Security's disability insurance program faced the most immediate threat, with its trust fund expected to run out of money in 2016, two years sooner than predicted last year.
This is a guest blog post by THRIVE, a Trustee of the Kiva Zip program.
A report issued on March 30 by trustees of the Medicare program said the trust fund would be exhausted in 2023.
She will present the panel's conclusions this week to other trustees of the Medicare program, including Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman.
The trustees of the Medicare program said in April that the hospital insurance trust fund, which pays hospital bills for Medicare beneficiaries, would be solvent until 2025.
Marie was trustee of the Mothers 2 Mothers Program, a renowned AIDS prevention program in Africa, a trustee of the Lymphoma Research Foundation and a trustee of the Corner House Foundation.
In a joint statement, the public trustees of the two programs, John L. Palmer and Thomas R. Saving, said the projected costs of the drug benefit were "significantly lower than those in the 2005 report due to recent slower growth in overall prescription drug spending and lower enrollment in stand-alone prescription drug plans than was expected a year ago".
