Reply #19: "the program is not only fully paid for..." [View All]

[jeanpalmer]

It's paid for only through an accounting gimmick. On a yearly basis starting in 2013, it is underfunded by about $33 billion a year. The Senate couldn't come up with the money to fund it on an annual basis, so what it did was let the revenue raisers start immediately, but have the spending on benefits not start til 2013. That way, "over ten years" the program is funded. But starting in 2013, it is not fully funded on an annual basis.

Also, $30+ billion a year in funding comes from "Medicare savings." That gimmick has also been exposed. If Medicare experiences savings, those savings should be used to shore up Medicare which is going into the red. The savings shouldn't be used to fund an unrelated general budget item. If savings are available in Medicare, they ought to be used within Medicare.

The whole effort has used sleight of hand accounting tricks and has been dishonest from the beginning.

As an indication of the dishonesty, the Democrats tried to double count the "Medicare savings," saying the Medicare savings would shore up Medicare, and at the same time decrease the deficit. They got called on it by Jeff Sessions. And the CBO at that point admitted that the savings were being double counted.