Iceberg ahead - don't turn the wheel

Here's Thomas Healey in the Boston Globe with "The coming crisis for Medicare." He notes that the Medicare trustees have triggered the first-ever "funding warning" signifying that the program cannot be sustained in its current form. The warning requires Washington to find a remedy for the funding problem:

The warning requires President Bush to propose legislation that responds to the alert within 15 days of the release of the fiscal year 2009 budget -- in other words, in early February 2008. The law then requires Congress to consider the president's proposals on an expedited basis.

No one can predict the outcome of this exercise. But it will at least focus lawmakers' attention -- and the public's -- on an incontrovertible fact: Medicare is not just undercapitalized; it's a severely flawed system.

What's going to happen? Nothing:

Finally, politicians have virtually no short-term incentives to tackle the Medicare problem. The reason is clear: any change that leaves the elderly worse off than before will lead to swift condemnation and ballot box reprisals by a large and vocal segment of the population. Meanwhile, pressure from much younger workers who fund Medicare is nearly non-existent.

At some point during the 2008 presidential campaign, the candidates will meet with younger voters, probably in a debate coordinated by MTV. If none of these Gen Y slackers manages to ask about the entitlement bill coming due, they deserve a future of crushing taxes.