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Raging Rapids Threaten MedicareIn an April speech to the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt warned that the next administration needs to get control over the $400 billion government-funded Medicare insurance plan or it will be swallowed up in a dangerous and raging torrent of rising costs and increased demand. Leavitt compared the current state of Medicare to a whitewater-rafting experience, when rafters are caught in treacherous whirlpools and trapped underwater in "a jungle of debris." Skilled canoeists, he said, know to "scout the river" first and plan a safe course to avoid the danger. Like the source of a stream, Medicare's liabilities started as a trickle 40 years ago. Today the program has moved further downriver, gaining steam and growing into a complex network that threatens future access to the program for millions of Americans. Leavitt asserts that three key ingredients have created a dangerous recipe for disaster: the rising cost of medical care, an aging population and a decreasing number of workers who will support the program through payroll taxes in the future. If Congress doesn't act quickly, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2019, and currently no legislative plans are in the works to make sure hospitals will get paid to take care of the elderly. Medicare patients represent the largest percentage of inpatients in most U.S. hospitals, few of which can absorb the cost of caring for uninsured patients without reimbursement from the government insurance program. The clock is tickingTime has run out for President George W. Bush and the current Congress to solve the problem, according to Leavitt. But he did have suggestions for the next administration to consider. Leavitt said he believes keeping Medicare solvent through the 21st century will require:
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