"Medicare is an odd target. Its popularity among Americans stems in part from its efficiency." How is this efficiency measured? After all, this is a gov't entity with plenty of waste. It is probably measured as a comparison of benefits paid out to total program cost. Since Medicare recipients are elderly, their healthcare costs are higher, which artificially increases the "efficiency".

It is not the Department of Transportation or the U.S. Forestry Commission that is driving our debt. Each day, tax revenue falls approximately four billion short of federal government spending, a trend that began long ago. The largest percentage of each dollar collected or borrowed is paid out to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, dwarfing all other government spending combined. Having long ago tapped out U.S. banks to compensate the shortfall, the federal government has for years borrowed from China. The interest alone has come to threaten the American treasury. Even if all inefficiency and waste, and, even the administrative costs, are removed, the benefits alone for these three programs total far more than the shrinking U.S. tax base is capable of producing. Absent steep cuts in these three money pits, how can the nation survive?

It never ceases to amaze me how wrong the editorials of this paper are.

To claim Medicare has "efficiency" on any level is laughable. Even the Obama adminstration claims their $700billion+ cuts to Medicare is an effort to clean it up.

The write claims that 65 year olds with below average income have just a one year increase in life expectancy...but at no point does the write SAY what the current life expectancy for US citizens is. A quick Google search shows that the average life expectancy as of 2011 is 78 years. Upping the age of eligibility for Medicare benefits is not going to deny anybody 67 years of age, rich or poor, benefits. So please, Decatur Daily, stop lying to in your efforts to promote the divisive agenda of the far left.

As far as the last paragraph, the writer cites no sources so I have NO idea where they came up with those numbers on what it would cost all Americans. My guess is it would cost nothing for as Money Magazine stated in Aug. 2011, "Workers are now retiring at older ages because the incentives to retire have changed. Since people are retiring later, they will continue to enjoy their work provided health insurance benefits. And since people are working longer, it only makes sense for Medicare to start later.

Or increasing taxes , Otis.

Joe, increasing taxes is not the answer. If the gov't confiscated all the wealth in the US for its use, it would last less than two weeks at the current level of spending. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. The Obama administration has zero interest in cutting any entitlement spending since that's the vehicle he uses to pay for the votes he bought in 2008 and 2012.