·
President Trump's 2020 budget
proposal calls for major reductions in spending on Medicare and Medicaid.
·
Trump promised not to cut the
programs as a candidate in 2016, and his potential 2020 rivals are already
using the budget plan against him.
·
The White House has denied that
Trump wants to cut the popular programs, and even Trump's predecessor Barack
Obama trimmed Medicare spending.
Published 9:24 AM ET Tue, 12 March 2019 Updated
1:46 PM ET Tue, 12 March 2019 CNBC.com
Critics of
President Donald Trump's
new budget are accusing him of breaking a key campaign promise ahead of his
2020 re-election bid.
His fiscal 2020 proposal
unveiled Monday calls for reductions in funding for Medicare and Medicaid
relative to current law. Over a decade, the plan would shave an estimated $800
billion or more off Medicare, which covers older Americans, according to the
Kaiser Family Foundation and various reports. It would also cut spending on
Medicaid, the federal-state program that insures low-income Americans, by more
than $200 billion while setting up block grants to states.
Congress ultimately
decides what money to spend, and Trump's proposal is not likely to get through
Capitol Hill. Still, a budget represents a president's priorities even if it
may not ultimately impact Americans' lives.
For Trump — who during his
2016 presidential bid promised not to cut the popular Medicare, Medicaid and
Social Security programs — the proposal opens another vulnerability as he tries
to hold on to the White House. In 2015, he declared that he "was the first
and only" possible GOP presidential candidate to "state there will be
no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid."
I
was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts
to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.
Multiple
candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination seized on suggested cuts
to the social safety net, arguing they would hurt seniors and the most
vulnerable Americans. They will likely keep the president's health care
policies top of mind through the November 2020 election, after Republican
efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act helped Democrats flip control of the
House in last year's midterms.
Democratic presidential
hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris of California called the proposed funding reductions
"yet another piece of evidence for why we need a new president." Sen.
Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent running for president as a Democrat,
framed the floated health-care changes as a "massive transfer of
wealth" from the working class to the richest Americans.
This
budget says a lot about the President's priorities: cut $845 billion from
Medicare, while spending billions on his vanity project, the wall.
This would hurt our seniors and is yet another piece of evidence for why we need a new president. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-proposes-47-trillion-budget-with-domestic-cuts-86-billion-in-wall-funding/2019/03/11/de11cfa4-43fe-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html …
This would hurt our seniors and is yet another piece of evidence for why we need a new president. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-proposes-47-trillion-budget-with-domestic-cuts-86-billion-in-wall-funding/2019/03/11/de11cfa4-43fe-11e9-90f0-0ccfeec87a61_story.html …
Trump’s
budget cuts $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, $845 billion from Medicare and $25
billion from Social Security.
Make no mistake about it: Trump’s budget is a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America.
Make no mistake about it: Trump’s budget is a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America.
Another
presidential hopeful, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., pointed to proposed Medicare
spending reductions as she contended that "we need a smart budget, not one
based on empty campaign promises."
The
President has proposed a budget that cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from
domestic programs like Medicare and environmental protections. But he still
found billions of dollars for his wall.
We need a smart budget, not one based on empty campaign promises.
We need a smart budget, not one based on empty campaign promises.
The
proposed Medicare changes aim to address waste and abuse in the system —
efforts that both major parties have supported in the past. It is "hard to
predict how these proposals would affect patient care if they became law,"
said Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation's Program on
Medicare Policy.
However, she expects
hospitals and health providers to say the budget will harm seniors. AARP — a
special interest group dedicated to older Americans — said it is
"concerned about proposed cuts to programs important to seniors" in
Trump's budget despite his efforts to address drug prices.
The White House has
denied that Trump wants to gut Medicare — a widely popular program.
On
Monday, acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said the
president is "not cutting Medicare in this budget" but rather
"putting forward reforms that are cutting drug prices." Medicare
spending would still rise "every year by healthy margins" and no
"structural changes" would take place, he said.
While
spending would still rise under Trump's plan, it would not climb as much as it
would under current law. His proposal fits within a broader Republican push to
reform the massive federal safety net programs Medicare and Social Security,
which are projected to come under an increasing strain in the coming years from
the aging U.S. population. During last year's midterms, Democrats frequently
warned about potential GOP efforts to trim the programs in order to make up for
revenue shortfalls created by corporate and individual tax cuts passed in 2017.
Medicare
— which covers roughly 60 million people over age 65 — accounted for about 15
percent of the federal budget in 2017, according to the Kaiser Family
Foundation. It is set to make up about 18 percent of federal outlays in 2028.
Trump's
budget proposal comes as Democrats widely call for an expansion of government
health options. Candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination have pushed for
a move to universal coverage, whether by giving Americans a choice
to opt into Medicare or Medicaid or by setting up a single-payer system.
Sen.
Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, summed up Democrats' argument: "One party wants to
expand Medicare and Medicaid and the other wants to cut them."
One
party wants to expand Medicare and Medicaid and the other wants to cut them.
That’s the end of my tweet.
It is
unclear how the Medicare cost cuts proposed by Trump would directly affect
patients. The money would largely come from payments to hospitals and other
health providers, according to Kaiser's Neuman.
Efforts
to control Medicare costs are not new. The Affordable Care Act — better known
as Obamacare — cut $716 billion from the program. Those savings came largely
from reducing payments to Medicare Advantage plans, which private companies
offer, Neuman said.
Past
plans floated in Congress offer a better understanding of how Trump's wider
health-care proposals would affect Americans. His proposal to undo Obamacare's
Medicaid expansion and set up block grants to states echoes a bill put forth by
GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in
2017.
During
the GOP's rush to dismantle Obamacare in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office
did not have the time to do a full accounting of the plan's effects.
Still, the nonpartisan
group estimated it would reduce deficits by $133 billion. The
CBO added that "the number of people with comprehensive health insurance
that covers high-cost medical events would be reduced by millions"
compared with current law.
Criticizing
another party's plans to potentially damage Americans' health coverage has long
been seen as a politically potent attack. Democrats put Republican attempts to
repeal Obamacare — and potentially get rid of the law's protections for people
with pre-existing medical conditions — front and center during last year's
elections.
Trump
will now have to defend against attacks on his plan to cut Medicare costs. Not
long ago, he was on the sidelines during the 2012 presidential criticizing
President Barack Obama for trimming Medicare spending.
"There's
only one person who has defunded Medicare. His name is @BarackObama,"
Trump tweeted in August 2012.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/12/trump-2020-budget-proposes-reduced-medicare-and-medicaid-spending.html
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