US Social Security, health spending to hit $3.2 trillion a year

US spending on Social Security and healthcare will double to $3.2 trillion a year over the next decade, threatening a sharp rise in national debt unless Congress acts to avoid the danger, congressional researchers warned on Tuesday.

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did not put forth a plan to resolve the long-term imbalance between revenues and spending on retirement and healthcare benefits. But it said that action taken now would help minimize the economic impact of whatever course lawmakers can agree on.

"Unless the laws governing these programs are changed - or the increased spending is accompanied by corresponding reductions in other spending, sufficiently higher tax revenues, or a combination of the two - debt will rise sharply relative to (the US economy) after 2023," the CBO warned.

The report, CBO's latest on the US budget and economic outlook, comes as President Barack Obama and Congress prepare for a showdown over the federal deficit in coming months.

"Deciding now what policy changes to make to resolve that long-term imbalance would allow for gradual implementation, which would give households, businesses and state and local governments time to plan and adjust their behavior," CBO said.

The agency estimated last June that Social Security and federal health programs would account for more than one-quarter of US gross domestic product by 2037 unless laws were changed.

Federal spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid stood at $1.6 trillion in 2012, with healthcare spending alone at $885 billion.

CBO predicts that annual outlays for those programs alone will top $3 trillion by 2023, with Obama's healthcare reform law adding another $134 billion in costs to provide coverage for 26 million people through new state-based healthcare exchanges.

Expanded health coverage under the reform law would cost $1.3 trillion over the next ten years, slightly higher than its forecast in August, and reach 38 million people in 2022 through the exchanges and an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor beginning Jan. 1, 2014, the CBO SAID.

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