Health Care

Associated Press - Government benefit programs in trouble

Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges," with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe.

The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.