Will the Media Notice Medicare?

The Social Security and Medicare trustees' report is due today, and my first question is: will Medicare be the lead of anyone's news story today? This is the annual report where the trustees make their projections on when the trust funds for the two programs run out. Obviously, I haven't seen the report yet, but one thing I'm sure the trustees will say is that Medicare is in much, much worse trouble than Social Security (because, in addition to having to cope with 78 million baby boomers, Medicare also has to deal with skyrocketing health care costs).

In last year's report, the trustees projected Medicare's trust fund would run out in 2019, while Social Security's trust fund would run out in 2041. The trustees even issued an official "funding warning" about Medicare. And yet most of the media coverage led with Social Security. And in most of the interviews I've done over the past couple months, I've found that both reporters and interested citizens are much more likely to ask about Social Security. Very few ask questions about Medicare. Even in the presidential campaign, where the candidates are talking extensively about health care, they're not talking much about health care in the context of Medicare.

But we're going to have to start talking about the problems of Medicare soon, because they're huge and they're bearing down on us fast.