Entitlement Spending

Our Coming Fiscal Tsunami

David Koitz

• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780817915568
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Policy

David Koitz clarifies misconceptions and presents the facts on the impending fiscal crisis driven by spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Although these programs are idolized as pillars of the nation's safety net, he shows how they are in fact the largest drivers of our looming fiscal problem. Koitz explains that, if an effective remedy is to emerge, those three programs must contribute heavily to the changes lawmakers consider and offers some policy directions for dealing with them.

Table of contents

• OUR EMERGING DILEMMA
• CONTENTS
• LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• One
• OUR COMING TSUNAMI
• Two
• FACING UP TO THE ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM: Medicare and Medicaid
• Three
• CUTTING THROUGH THE SOCIAL SECURITY FOG
• Four
• THERE IS NO TIME LEFT TO PUNT AGAIN
• Five
• “THE MAN BEHIND THE TREE IS YOU AND ME”
• APPENDICES
• Appendix 1
• The National Debt
• Appendix 2
• The Federal Budget
• Appendix 3
• The Potential Consequences of Our Current Fiscal Path
• Appendix 4
• Perceptions, Misperceptions, and Myths About the Problem
• Appendix 5
• Why the “Problem” Is a Problem
• Appendix 6
• The Significance of Addressing the Problem Sooner Rather than Later
• Appendix 7
• What Options Are There to Address the Problem?
• Supplementary Material
• Brief Descriptions of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and “All-Other” Spending
• About the Author
• INDEX