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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

I have excerpted from the full story to save you busy gardeners some time. 
If you wish to read the entire article, it is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59227-2005Mar23.html

Report Emphasizes Shortfall in Medicare

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 24, 2005; Page A01

The two independent trustees overseeing Social Security and Medicare broke 
with the Bush administration's trustees yesterday, saying Medicare's 
financial problems far exceed Social Security's and are in urgent need of 
attention.

Republican Thomas R. Saving and Democrat John L. Palmer said Social 
Security's condition has changed little since they joined the Social 
Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees in 2000. But in the trustees' 
report released yesterday, they wrote that Medicare's prospects have 
"deteriorated dramatically" with rising medical costs and the addition in 
2003 of a prescription drug benefit.

[snip]

"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 
2000," wrote Saving and Palmer. "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial 
outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now 
much worse that Social Security's."

[snip]

While Social Security benefits are scheduled to exceed tax revenue by 2017, 
Medicare's trust fund, which finances hospitalization of the elderly, 
reached that juncture last year. The trustees project the Social Security 
trust fund will be exhausted by 2041, one year sooner than projected last 
year. But Medicare's trust will be depleted more than two decades earlier, 
in 2020. Last year's report projected the Medicare trust fund exhaustion 
date to be 2019.

By 2024, Medicare's cost will have roared past Social Security's, Saving 
and Palmer wrote.

The government would have to put aside $11.1 trillion today to finance 
Social Security's promised benefits indefinitely, the trustees reported. 
But just the new Medicare prescription drug benefit included in the 2003 
Medicare Modernization Act has an unfunded liability of $18.2 trillion 
projected out infinitely.

[snip]

Saving briefed Republicans on Capitol Hill yesterday, presenting data that 
showed Medicare's total unfunded liability at $65.4 trillion, almost six 
times Social Security's.

[snip]

In the past five years, the date when Social Security would begin taking in 
less in taxes than it pays in benefits has actually slipped, from 2015 to 
2017, the public trustees wrote, while the date of Social Security trust 
fund exhaustion has been pushed back from 2037 to 2041. Looking 75 years 
into the future, Social Security's cost, measured against the size of the 
economy, has also improved, from 6.8 percent of the gross domestic product 
projected in 2000 to 6.4 percent projected in yesterday's report.

In contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated on all fronts. 
The year Saving and Palmer joined the board, Medicare's hospital insurance 
trust fund was projected to begin paying more in benefits than it collects 
in taxes in 2010. Instead, it reached that point last year. The point of 
trust fund exhaustion has moved up from 2025 to 2020.

[snip]

"Medicare's costs are expected to grow at a much faster rate than those of 
Social Security," they concluded.