While the AP's Glen Johnson dwells on the fact that Bush's overtly partisan trustees' assessment that Social Security will begin paying out about 75% benefits beginning in 2042 (a figure higher than today's payout, even when accounting for inflation), The Washington Post notes the more important news from the report: Medicare's situation is significantly worse than Social Security's. Jonathan Weisman, writing for The Post:

The two independent trustees overseeing Social Security and Medicare broke with the Bush administration's trustees yesterday, saying Medicare's financial problems far exceed Social Security's and are in urgent need of attention.

Republican Thomas R. Saving and Democrat John L. Palmer said Social Security's condition has changed little since they joined the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees in 2000. But in the trustees' report released yesterday, they wrote that Medicare's prospects have "deteriorated dramatically" with rising medical costs and the addition in 2003 of a prescription drug benefit.

"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 2000," wrote Saving and Palmer. "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now much worse that Social Security's."

The real crisis in America pertains to Medicare, and Bush's nearly trillion dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry in the form of the Prescription drug benefit only weakens the program.

If the President and his GOP Congress actually cared about this country, they would begin to deal with Medicare now instead of trying to privatize Social Security. As they push on with their plan for private accounts, however, they show once again that they care more about ideology and partisanship than the wellbeing of America.