Paul Krugman debunks the latest line on Medicare:
Last week CBO issued its latest budget projections. And every report I saw conveyed the impression that they were bad news, reinforcing the case that Medicare and Social Security are unsustainable. But that's not what we learned 1/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
CBO's main projections were for 10 years, but it also updated its long-run budget projections. Here's how those projections for Medicare changed since last July 2/ pic.twitter.com/TieOBhalFq
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
What? Medicare's prospects look better than they did before? I'll bet you didn't get that impression from the stories. All you read was that an aging population plus rising health costs will be a financial problem — but that wasn't news 3/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
The news is that CBO is getting more optimistic about our ability to contain health costs, which is crucial: demography alone isn't *that* big a deal. Here's CBO's chart from last July 4/ pic.twitter.com/FUuKSjWhuV
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
Bear in mind that US health costs are much higher than anyone else's — and also that their rate of growth has been slowing 5/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
Gah. Here's the chart 6/ pic.twitter.com/r2QNHIWrJk
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
So it's not unreasonable to believe that we can do a lot of health cost control. And while the demographic drag on the budget isn't small, it isn't gigantic either — <3% of GDP. So a future of cost control plus moderate tax increases is arguably feasible 7/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) February 18, 2023
