Trustees Report on Medicare Trust Funds for 2014 is an Embarrassment
Let me get several things off my chest on this embarrassment of a report. The Trustees are asleep or not performing their fiduciary duty. Jacob (Jack) Lew, Secretary of the Treasury and Managing Trustee of the Trust Funds, is a tough budget specialist and yet he allows this ‘hope’ projection a pass. He is the managing trustee and should be driving a fairer result. Has he lost his sense of reason and his commitment to the American people? Sylvia Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is newly appointed. However, how did she not ask her own staff about these low assumptions for health care inflation? That staff just produced a report that indicated health inflation will resume its assent shortly. Do you homework next time, Sylvia before you sign off on a report for Medicare. The American people deserve better from you. The outside Trustees, Charles Blahous and Robert Reischauer, ought to be protecting the public better than this rather than going along with this politically motivated ‘hope’ projection. And where are these two in pushing the Congress and the President on stabilizing these Trust Funds so that we, our children, and our grandchildren can continue to enjoy the benefits of these programs.
Straighten out and do your jobs.
Sam Allen
