Medicare Reform: Issues Associated With General Revenue Financing

Abstract

Before I turn to a more detailed description of Medicare's financial structure including the Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund, it is helpful first to look more generally at what the term "trust fund" means in the context of the federal budget. The federal budget consists of several fund types: the general fund, special funds, public enterprise funds, intragovernmental funds, and trust funds. All of these except trust funds are considered to be "federal funds." All unified budget transactions fall within either of two fund groups: (1) federal funds and (2) trust funds. Although some budget summary tables show only about a dozen major trust funds, in fiscal year 1998 there were 112 trust funds These covered a wide range of purposes: from social insurance (Social Security and Medicare), employee compensation (pensions and health benefits), insurance, natural resources and environmental cleanup to transportation. Social Security is by far the largest trust fund, followed by federal employee retirement funds (civilian and military) and the Medicare trust funds.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 27, 2000
Accession Number
ADA375269

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accounting
  • Congress
  • Federal Budgets
  • Governments
  • Health
  • Health Care
  • Health Services
  • Hospitals
  • Income
  • Law
  • Money
  • National Security
  • Natural Resources
  • Prescription Drugs
  • Revenue
  • Security
  • Social Security

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.