Quoted from the US Comptroller General, David Walker, taken from a speech he made to the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) in mid-December of 2003.

"According to the US Government's September 30, 2002 balance sheet, we had an accumulated deficit of about $7 trillion, or about $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the US today. Interestingly, the accumulated deficit does not include a number of very important and very large sums (e.g., the bonds in Social Security and Medicare trust funds, the difference between future Social Security and Medicare promised versus funded benefits, and veterans health care benefits). As a result, our real financial condition is much worse than advertised, and it's getting worse every day. In fact, if you were to estimate the cost of the items that were not included in the September 30, 2002 financial statements, the average burden per American would go from $24,000 to more than $124,000."

"Much of this projected deficit is due to the impending and unprecedented demographic tidal wave that will begin to hit our country in fewer than 10 years. However, unlike most tidal waves, this demographic tidal wave will never recede! It will bring a fundamental and lasting change to the age profile of our nation. Frankly, budget deficits are not just numbers. If left unchecked, they can have an adverse effect on the national security of our nation and the economic security of Americans in the future. While additional economic growth can help, our fiscal gap is simply too great to grow our way out of the problem!"

Source: Market Observations, ContraryInvestor.com

"With costs escalating and the size of our economy increasing year after year, Walker says Medicare has been in a negative cash-flow position since 1992. It will become insolvent in 2013 and is projected to become an unrealistically high percentage of the economy. “Medicare is fundamentally unsustainable in its present form. While people recognize we have a problem with Social Security, they do not understand the nature and extent and timing of the Medicare problem.” http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/jul1999/news1.htm This speech was made several years before the passage of the Medicare Prescription Bill.