PEDIATRICS Vol. 84 No. 1 July 1989, pp. A19
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MEDICARE'S MONEY PIT

R. J. M. Jr MD

Medicare, which was advertised in 1965 as a modest program to protect senior citizens from bankruptcy, has become the federal budget's $100 billion money pit . . .

Within 15 years Medicare outlays will equal those for defense or Social Security. Only seven years after that, Medicare spending will equal that for Social Security and defense combined . . .

. . . as Senator Ellender understood, who won't take a check when someone else is writing it? Medicare taxes the young to care for the old, but it offers the old no incentive to think about, much less restrain, the cost of their care. The elderly we know hardly want to burden their grandchildren, yet Medicare's socialist incentives are encouraging them to do just that.