; findings (a) Short title This Act may be cited as the Social Security and Medicare Lock-Box Act . (b) Findings regarding social security and Medicare part A The Congress finds the following: (1) (A) Long-term projections show serious problems facing the fiscal health of the trust funds associated with Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance. (B) According to the 2016 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds, the assets of the combined Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2034, and the Disability Insurance Trust Fund alone will be depleted by 2022. (C) According to the 2016 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds, the assets of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2028. (2) (A) The Trustees of these trust funds strongly encourage action to protect the solvency of the trust funds. (B) In their message to the public, included in the 2016 Annual Reports, the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees wrote, Social Security’s and Medicare’s projected long-range costs exceed currently scheduled financing and will require legislative action to avoid subjecting beneficiaries and taxpayers to unanticipated program changes. The sooner that lawmakers take action, the wider will be the range of solutions to consider and the more time that will be available to phase in changes, giving the public adequate time to prepare. Earlier action allows more generations to share the economic cost of maintaining program solvency, and would provide more opportunity to ameliorate adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already significantly dependent on program benefits. (3) Social Security and Medicare are meant to provide a secure and stable base so that older Americans can live in dignity. (4)