Kaiser Family Foundation Brief Examines Medicare's Financing and Long-Term Fiscal Outlook

A new issue brief prepared for the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an overview of Medicare's financing and the fiscal challenges the program faces in the coming decades. The brief describes how Medicare is financed and examines several methods of assessing its long-term financial outlook. It also looks at what is driving the program's growth, including the nation's broader trend toward higher health care costs that also is affecting private-sector spending The Issue Brief which was prepared by the Foundation of Health Policy Alternatives, Inc., is available at http://www.kff.org/medicare/7731.cfm .