In 2026, 55% of those with Parts A and B used Medicare Advantage. Program spending was about $1.21 trillion in 2025 and near $1.3 trillion in 2026, up from $666 billion a decade earlier.
Medicare is projected to go bankrupt by 2032, but thanks to the last 18 months of investigations into waste, fraud and abuse at the second-largest entitlement fund, the life of the program may be extended by over a decade, or longer.
“The beautiful thing about taking out fraud is you’re taking out bad guys who are stealing from poor people,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz told Just The News exclusively.
“The American people love it, but you’re also saving the program from insolvency. We project that Medicare will go bankrupt in about six years. We could double that life expectancy just by taking the fraud out of Medicare—forget the rest of it—just from Medicare.”
Under President Donald Trump, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has focused on program integrity rather than a comprehensive solvency package that would close the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund gap.
CMS reports it has blocked more than $1.6 billion in potentially fraudulent laboratory payments since January 2025 and cited $42 billion in FY2025 fraud-prevention savings. Officials, including Oz and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, describe waste, fraud and abuse crackdowns as the main path to stretch Medicare dollars.
The July 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act made 2017-era tax cuts permanent and added a senior deduction, which the 2026 Trustees Report says reduced Hospital Insurance revenue from taxation of Social Security benefits and widened the 75-year shortfall.