Medicare is in serious fiscal trouble, but no one seems to be paying attention. The Medicare trustees recently issued their annual report, and the news is not good. If current trends continue, Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund will be depleted in 2019. To make good on the health care benefits promised to Americans, future generations face a tax bill of $85 trillion (measured in today’s dollars). That makes the mortgage bailout, which is unlikely to cost more than $1 trillion, look like chicken feed. Why are we ignoring a calamity that will affect every American? What can we do to avoid fiscal disaster?

Ante up.