Fixing Social Security may be one of the top priorities of lawmakers in Washington, but the honest truth is that Medicare, the program that provides subsidized healthcare coverage to roughly 56 million people (most of them seniors), is probably in deeper trouble than Social Security.

According to the Medicare Board of Trustees 2016 report, the Hospital Insurance Trust, which funds Part A, the component of Medicare that covers in-patient hospitals stays, procedures, and long-term skilled nursing care, is slated to burn through its spare cash by the year 2028.

The silver lining here for senior citizens is that a depletion of Medicare's spare cash doesn't mean the program is bankrupt or insolvent. However, it would mean the program would become budget-neutral. In such an event, reimbursements to physicians and hospitals would drop by an estimated 13%. The danger of such a drop is that Medicare, which is accepted by more than 90% of physicians and hospitals across the U.S., may wind up being dropped if reimbursements aren't deemed to be sufficient.