Disability insurance causes pain for Medicare

Every year, a vitally important issue gets lost in the din: disability insurance payments, which account for almost $1 out of every $5 spent by Social Security, are growing out of control. The trustees reported Monday that the government made $128.9 billion in insurance payments to 10.6 million disabled workers and their family members last year, 25 percent more than it received from payroll taxes. Medicare spent more than $90 billion on benefits for disabled workers. And Medicaid spent $110 billion more on the poor disabled.