Projected Medicare Spending Increases Over Time

New research by Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Veronique de Rugy illustrates how the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) long-term projections of Medicare spending have steadily increased, even over short periods of time.

This upward revision of projected costs comes even in spite of CBO’s allowances for ‘excess cost growth.’

Furthermore, de Rugy finds that actual expenditures exceed projections– in 2008, federal outlays for Medicare exceeded most recent projections by $63 billion; in 2009, federal outlays for Medicare exceeded projections by over $148 billion.