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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe GOP health plan is an attack on MEDICARE as much as Obamacare.
Last edited Sat Mar 11, 2017, 08:50 PM - Edit history (1)
It repeals the taxes specifically put into place to shore-up the Medicare trust fund.
Then they're going to declare that Medicare is a 'disaster" and turn it into coupons for the elderly poor.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-health-care-bill-repeal-medicare-tax-funding-crisis
The long-awaited GOP health care bill finally unveiled this week strikes an immediate blow to Medicare funding, accelerating a solvency crisis that health policy experts say could open the door to even more devastating cuts down the road.
By repealing a payroll tax on high earners that provided a critical additional revenue stream for the Medicare trust fund, the GOP's proposed American Health Care Act would speed up the funds exhaustion by as many as three to four years, according to estimates from health care policy experts.
SNIP
Critics say this provision is a prime example of the GOP bill granting tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the countrys neediest citizens, and that it paves the way for Medicare privatization. One former Obama administration official argued that by endangering the programs funding, so-called entitlement hawks like House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) will have cover to argue that Medicare as we know it is financially unsustainablethen realize their long-held dream of turning it into a voucher program.
Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services during the last two years of the Obama administration, has been ringing this bell loudly since the AHCA was made public Monday night.
I think its a smarter play for them to move Medicare closer to a crisis, try to get this bill done, and then build a case about why this crisis needs to be addressed, he told TPM in a Thursday phone interview.
Wounded Bear
(58,645 posts)but it is real.
Essentially they want that clause in the Preamble to the Constitution expunged. You know the one that says "to promote the general welfare."
Eliot Rosewater
(31,109 posts)dalton99a
(81,450 posts)not just Obamacare.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)SHRED
(28,136 posts)...gutting of the State Department and EPA, destroying health care access, and undeniable Russian espionage support,... I hope the JPR, Kucinich, Stein, Greenwald, and anyone else on our side who thought both candidates were "the same"...I hope they are happy now.
salin
(48,955 posts)this hidden, but very intentional attack on Medicare?
greenman3610
(3,947 posts)borrowing from medicare to finance Iraq?
Scarsdale
(9,426 posts)Let them try this plan for a few years, see how it works for them.