Biden and Democrats Have Truly Worked to “Beat Medicare”
Most Americans watching last week’s presidential debate probably thought President Biden’s “we finally beat Medicare” remark was the muttering of someone struggling, and failing, to maintain his train of thought. But savvier observers might instead regard Mr. Biden’s comment as a “Kinsley gaffe,” one in which a politician unintentionally reveals a larger truth: Elected Democrats, including Mr. Biden, have spent decades trying not only to “beat Medicare” but to abolish it.
Consider the single-payer healthcare legislation introduced repeatedly by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). The bill states that “no benefits shall be available under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act”—which establishes Medicare—once the single-payer program goes into effect, and it provides for the dissolution of the Medicare trust funds. As I noted in these pages in 2018, these provisions make the bill not “Medicare for All,” as Mr. Sanders claims, but “Medicare for None.”
The 2020 presidential primaries showed that many other Democrats also supported abolishing Medicare. Senators including Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) co-sponsored Mr. Sanders’s “Medicare for None” bill, although Ms. Harris later executed a series of political flip-flops over single-payer that helped doom her presidential campaign. Likewise, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.), whom Democrats would make the next speaker of the House, supported the House version of Mr. Sanders’s proposal to abolish Medicare in 2019.
Democrats’ desire to abolish Medicare is hardly a recent development. The American Health Security Act in 1993 provided for a single-payer program that, like Mr. Sanders’s proposal, would have ended benefits under Medicare and diverted any amounts remaining in the Medicare trust funds to the new program. Among the House bill’s co-sponsors: Chuck Schumer, now the Senate majority leader; Xavier Becerra, now the secretary of health and human services; and Nancy Pelosi, who publicly demanded a House vote on the legislation.
Joe Biden’s history of seeking to abolish Medicare goes all the way back to 1975. That year, the then-freshman senator introduced so-called “sunset” legislation to terminate within six years “all provisions of law in effect . . . which authorize new budget authority for an unspecified number of fiscal years”—and to limit all new laws to authorize only four years of spending. Budget experts have confirmed that, as written and without further congressional action, the bill would have sunset the Medicare and Social Security programs, which is exactly what now-President Biden has alleged Republicans want to do.
Medicare has serious sustainability issues, and it needs reform to remain solvent in the long term. But Democratic proposals to end Medicare and create a single-payer system would simply exacerbate the federal government’s unsustainable spending problems. Using Medicare funds allocated for seniors to finance “free” healthcare for all Americans, including billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg, sounds like the kind of political attack Democrats would mount against Republicans. When leveled against Democrats, however, it has the added benefit of being true.
Joe Biden may not remember his legislation sunsetting Medicare and Social Security, and Democrats may wish to forget how they have used Medicare as a piggy bank to fund other government spending. But voters should recall that Democrats have truly sought to “beat Medicare” time and again.
This post was originally published at The Wall Street Journal.