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WASHINGTON, D.C.: According to the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released this week, an improving U.S. economy has delayed the go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security.

However, officials warned that policy changes are required to ensure that the programs can continue to provide full benefits to retiring Americans.

Due partly to higher payroll tax income and lower-than-projected expenses in 2023, Medicare’s go-broke date for its hospital insurance trust fund was pushed back five years to 2036.

Medicare is the federal government’s health insurance program that covers people age 65 and older and those with severe disabilities or illnesses. In 2023, more than 66 million people benefited from it, with most being 65 and older.

However, once depleted, it would be able to cover only 89 percent of costs for patients’ hospital visits, hospice care, nursing home stays, or home health care that follows hospital visits.

Instead of the 2023 estimate of 2034, Social Security’s trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035 and would only be able to pay 83 percent of benefits.

The report was “a measure of good news,” but “Congress still needs to act to avoid what is now forecast to be, in the absence of their action, a 17 percent cut to people’s Social Security benefits,” said Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley.

Some 71 million people, including retirees, disabled people, and children, receive Social Security benefits.

Responding to the report, President Joe Biden said, “as long as I am president, I will keep strengthening Social Security and Medicare.”

According to a March 2023 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, most American adults oppose proposals that would reduce Medicare or Social Security benefits and support raising taxes on the nation’s highest earners to keep the programs running.