Medicare is said to run short of money by 2026, according to an annual report published by the trustees who oversee the program. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman weighs in with the On the Move panel.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, there is information just out on the state of Medicare. Our Rick Newman has been sifting through the latest report on when Medicare is going to run out of money. But importantly, Rick, it also is important when this report was compiled, right? Because we don't fully factor in the effects of coronavirus.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, the trustees of Medicare and Social Security, once a year, they put out a report on the financial health of both programs. In general, Social Security is in better shape than Medicare. It's fully funded into the mid-2030s. Medicare is going to start running short of money in 2026. That's only six years away.

That doesn't mean it's going to go broke. That means it's just going to run short of money. And it's really important to point out, all this research the trustees did was before the coronavirus recession. So we know we're now in the midst of a terrible recession. Government revenue is going to go way down. So by the time we get this report next year, it could show that Medicare is going to start running short of money by-- who knows, 2023 or 2024, it's coming soon.

JULIE HYMAN: Rick, do we have a good sense of how important Medicare has been during this pandemic? In other words, yes, this report was from before, but how many Americans are on Medicare right now? Since we know that elderly Americans are more-- elderly people globally are more affected by COVID-19, do we know then what the cost has been to the-- are there any sort of early estimates for all of this?

RICK NEWMAN: Sure. I mean, Medicare is hugely important. I mean, it's health insurance for everybody 65 or older. I think there are something like 60 some odd million people in Medicare. It's very popular, and it works very well. Interestingly, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, likely to be, he has called for lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 60. And this-- of course, in the Democratic campaign, we heard a lot about new health care programs, which might be Medicare For All, a single government program for everybody like Medicare, or Medicare For More, more people being able to qualify for Medicare but leaving private insurance in place.

So you know, there are new reports that something like 9 million people have already lost health insurance within the last few weeks just because they're unemployed. And in this country, health insurance is attached to your job, for the most part. So this is going to be very hot issue as we get into the fall, and the financial health of Medicare is a really important matter.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, most definitely.