The cost of Medicare is expected to nearly double over the coming decade, according to projections issued this week by the Congressional Budget Office. Medicare’s spending is expected to increase to $1,058 billion in fiscal 2022 from $565.3 billion in fiscal 2011.

(For more on these projections, see Modern Healthcare's story "CBO: Medicare Cost to Nearly Double in 10 Years.")

While it’s no surprise that Medicare costs are projected to rise over the next 11 years, the magnitude of this latest CBO estimate is breathtaking. At a time when everyone from the average consumer to the President of the United States is calling Medicare cost expansion unsustainable, it’s frightening to be faced with such a forecast.

But it’s also predictable. Traditional Medicare is now 47 years old. It was – and still is -- designed to do just two things: pay claims and monitor fraud. It was designed before personal computers, before men walked on the moon, before the revolution in data analytics that has led to such dramatic cost savings and health improvement in that portion of the Medicare program which is enabled to take advantage of these and other innovations: Medicare Advantage.

Unlike traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage deploys the tools that empower consumers to be fully engaged participants in their own health, just as they are in the rest of their lives: care coordination, actionable real-time information, comparison shopping, wellness programs, and quality/cost standards for participating doctors and hospitals. It’s no surprise that a growing number of Americans opt for this alternative when they turn 65. Already it’s one out of four, and the percentage is rising.

The result? Again it’s not surprising. The CBO predicts Medicare Advantage costs will rise over the same 11-year timeframe by 16 percent, compared to the 87 percent increase projected for the overall Medicare program.