New Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports

I haven't read the new Social Security and Medicare reports, but apparently they aren't good news.  SS will be completely broke by 2033, 3 years earlier than previously projected.  It's hard to know exactly when the system will break, but the trend is not positive.

Medicare projected expenditures (pg 209):
2013 598
2014 631
2015 663
2016 704
2017 752
2018 806
2019 865
2020 933
2021 1005

Social Security projected expenditures (pg. 51, intermediate):
2013 832
2014 881
2015 933
2016 988
2017 1048
2018 1115
2019 1187
2020 1266
2021 1350

Medicaid projected expenditures (pg. 31):
2013 282
2014 341
2015 376
2016 408
2017 437
2018 465
2019 498
2020 531

Social Security in permanent cash-flow deficit now

First, it appears that the "Intragovernmental Holding" portion of the National Debt reached a peak on 10/18/2011 at $4.744 trillion.  This includes the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare Trust Fund.  When more social security and medicare taxes are withheld than paid out, this number increases.  It also accrues interest which increases the balance.  When more benefits are paid out than taxes are withheld, it decreases.  Since the government overall is running a huge deficit, this means that a portion of the Social Security checks now are coming from borrowed funds. 

Second, read this article:  http://brucekrasting.blogspot.com/2011/12/social-security-2011-another-bad-year.html

"The 2011 numbers for SSA indicate that we are at least five years ahead of existing thinking on the SSA deficits. When this realization sinks in, it will break the hearts of the SS defenders. If we are, as I contend, five to six years ahead of “schedule” with cash deficits at SSA, there is no alternative besides cutting scheduled benefits. Raising taxes to fill a hole this big is not an option. Nor is it an option to maintain the status quo and allow for a very rapid rundown of the SS Trust Fund.
If we are going to experience what I believe we will, then the cumulative SS cash shortfall over the next decade will add ANOTHER $1.5 trillion onto Public Sector Borrowing ("PSB"). (A shift from the Intergovernmental account into the PSB account; AKA the Chinese). This increase in PSB more than offsets the $1.2 T of cuts that the congressional super committee failure has just mandated."

Social Security Projections

A more sophisticated model that has Social Security broken out should use these numbers for projections:
2012 760
2013 802
2014 849
2015 899
2016 952
2017 1010
2018 1073
2019 1146
2020 1226

From:  http://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2011/tr2011.pdf, pg 50, Intermediate Projection.

After 2020, the projected expenditures are given as a percent of GDP as follows.
2020 7.02%
2025 7.66%
2030 8.15%
2035 8.40%
2040 8.43%
2045 8.36%
2050 8.28%