The Return of Mediscare
The Washington Post reports this morning that Democrats are playing political games again, “begin[ning] a campaign…to attack Republican lawmakers for pushing cuts to Medicare benefits during the latest round of failed federal deficit talks.” The story once again reveals the vast chasm between political rhetoric and policy reality for Democrats regarding our unsustainable entitlements. Obama’s own Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, said in July that Medicare “will run out of money in five years if we don’t do something.” And the President himself acknowledged that “if you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. I mean, it’s not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing.” Yet that’s exactly what most Democrats want to do – to do nothing on Medicare, in the hopes that they will benefit politically:
- The President’s deficit proposal scrupulously avoided ANY changes to the Medicare benefit until AFTER the President leaves office in 2017, even though the President’s own Chief of Staff said would run out of money by 2016. Some of the proposals, including additional means testing for wealthy beneficiaries, were actually positive steps forward. But what’s the point of delaying changes to the Medicare benefit until after the program could be broke – other than political gamesmanship? Given his eagerness to impose a trillion-dollar tax hike within mere months, why is the President so afraid of raising Medicare premiums on millionaires and billionaires until after he leaves office?
- As one House Member put it, if the President had proposed a true restructuring of our unsustainable entitlements, that would “cancel out any bludgeoning that Democrats might give the Republicans over Medicare and Medicaid.”
- Likewise, Senate Democrats have little interest in entitlement reform either; the Post’s the liberal Plum Line reported in July that Senate Democrats don’t want to pass Medicare reform because it would be “giving away the biggest [political] advantage” Democrats have had “in some time.”
- The most telling line of the Post’s story this morning? Rep. Steve Israel, Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “declined to say whether a [deficit] agreement to cut entitlements might have hindered his political strategy.” In other words, Democrats WANTED the supercommittee to fail – so that they could resume their “Mediscare” political attack ads against Republicans.
Remember, this is the same party that, as Speaker Pelosi recently admitted, “took a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in [Obamacare], the health care bill” to pay for more unsustainable new entitlements – but when it comes to reforming Medicare to save the program, Democrats have been AWOL, focusing instead on scoring political points.
Liberals’ willingness once again to exploit Medicare for electoral gain raises obvious points: With sovereign debt crises roiling Europe, some may question how long the program can wait for Democrats to stop their political posturing and work to fix our unsustainable entitlements – and whether, by increasing the risk of another debt downgrade or other fiscal turmoil, seniors may suffer in the long run for the Democrat deficit dithering.