We All Saw This One Coming
Washington PostGOP eyes post-tax-cut changes to welfare, Medicare and Social SecurityHigh-ranking Republicans are hinting that, after their tax overhaul, the party intends to look at cutting spending on welfare, entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare,Wall Street JournalAfter Push on Taxes, Republicans Line Up Welfare Revamp NextMr.Trump has repeatedly said he is interested in kick-starting a debate around means-tested social programsA draft executive order has been prepared during the past two months for Mr. Trump to sign, at the presidents requestNewsweekRepublicans Will Cut Social Security And Medicare After Tax Plan Passes, Says Marco Rubiowill require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for itTo address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security,most analyses of the plan shows that it increases taxes on low-income Americans and significantly aids wealthy business owners. Cuts to welfare and safety net programs would directly affect the poorest and most vulnerable Americans
Is Trump Cutting Medicare Benefits
Medicare was signed into law in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the 54 years since, Medicare benefits and eligibility have seen many changes. Many of these changes have been to expand the program, not to cut it. You may have heard that Trumps budget for 2020 will reduce taxes to the top one percent and cut $845 billion from Medicare over ten years.
Heres more about the politics surrounding funding for Medicare benefits.
How Alice Marie Johnson Became Of Symbol Of Trumps Criminal Justice Reform Agenda
Dartunorro Clark
Two years ago, reality star Kim Kardashian West personally lobbied the president in an Oval Office meeting to intervene on behalf of Alice Marie Johnson.
Johnsons story went viral after she did an interview from inside of an Alabama federal prison in which she was serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
In that video, Johnson shared the details of her story.
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A Shift Toward Medicare Privatization
Today, about one-third of seniors are enrolled in private plans through Medicare Advantage the other two-thirds are in traditional, fee-for-service Medicare. The share of beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage has grown over the past two decades. Medicare Advantage attracts a relatively healthier, less expensive pool of enrollees than that of traditional Medicare, and its per-beneficiary spending is lower. Some of that difference is attributable to lower health care utilization, although local market conditions and beneficiary health status also contribute. A number of studies have shown how Medicare Advantage plans profit from selection by attracting relatively healthier enrollees while also gaming the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services risk adjustment program to make their enrollees appear sicker. Medicare Advantage plans also enjoy distinct advantages over the traditional Medicare program, including integrated plan designs and the ability to avoid providers involved in graduate medical education.
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Scott On Social Security Medicare
In the same Fox News Sundayinterview featured in the DSCC ad and tweet, Scott went on to say that he had no intention of eliminating Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
Heres whats happening, Scott said. No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what were doing is we dont even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years. I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs. Every program that we care about, we ought to stop and take the time to preserve those programs.
We wrote at the time that Scott went too far in claiming that Medicare will go bankrupt in four years and Social Security in 12 years. Government trustees project that certain Medicare and Social Security trust funds would become depleted by then, but payments would continue, albeit at a reduced rate.
As we said, Scott has not outlined how he would change Social Security and Medicare, and whether that might include a reduction in benefits. But he has not advocated eliminating the programs entirely.
And although Democrats have labeled Scotts plan broadly as the Senate Republicans plan, theres reason to believe it may not have widespread support in the party.
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Rncs Third Night Goes All In On Law And Order Message As Protests Against Police Killings Continue
Two things can be true at the same time. One, this presidential election is so consequential, as Democrats and Republicans continue to remind us. And two, the actual campaigns whether its the conventions or the limited campaign activity seem so small compared with everything else.
WASHINGTON Driving President Donald Trump’s “law and order” message, Vice President Mike Pence praised law enforcement on the third night of the Republican convention Wednesday against the backdrop of protests sparked by a police officer shooting a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“Law and order are on the ballot,” Pence continued. “The choice in this election is whether America remains America.
Ivanka Jokes About Trump’s ‘communication Style’ Not All Are Laughing
Its not a communication style, its cruelty and indecency. Trump said he didnt like POWs who were captured, implied my father was burning in hell after he died and constantly trashed him while he was fighting brain cancer. This is how they have lost all decent people.
This claim, from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., refers to a $400 million payment the Obama administration made to Iran in January 2016 on the same day Iran released several American prisoners and implemented the nuclear deal.
That sum was actually part of a $1.7 billion settlement to Iran for a decades-long legal dispute that was before an international tribunal in The Hague, the State Department said at the time. The agency characterized the timing of the payment and the release of the American prisoners as coincidental.
A Wall Street Journal report at the time characterized the payment to Iran as a “secretly organized” airlift of euros, Swiss francs and other currencies given to Tehran. Cotton has been a vocal critic of the payment for years, calling even in 2016 that it “ransom to the ayatollahs for U.S. hostages.
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Recurring Theme: Cut The Safety Net
Then, theres Trumps own budget, as explained by a conservative Wall Street Journal article:
“The White House proposes to cut spending by $4.4 trillion over a decade. Of that, it targets $2 trillion in savings from mandatory spending programs, including $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from safety-net cuts such as work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps and $70 billion from tightening eligibility access to federal disability benefits.”
The president has said this stuff again and again.
Believe him and know this:
While youre hanging by a thread, hes oiling up the scissors.
Things To Watch For On Night 4 Of The Rnc
Shannon Pettypiece
President Trump has had nearly four years in office to sell his performance to the American people. So far, polls suggest he has yet to make the sale: A majority of Americans disapprove of the job he’s done, and he has consistently trailed Joe Biden in general election surveys this year.
So what can he say on the final night of the Republican National Convention to change those attitudes and convince Americans he deserves four more years in office? Republican strategists say they are looking for him to give a vision of what he would do in a second term an area he has struggled to define and how that would contrast with a Biden presidency.
Whatever message Trump delivers on the final night of the gathering, he will be competing for attention with a Category 4 hurricane that made landfall Thursday morning.
President Trump will focus his Republican National Convention speech Thursday on attacking Joe Biden, according to excerpts of his address.
At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump will say, according to excerpts of the speech from his campaign.
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Trump Opens Door To Cuts To Medicare And Other Entitlement Programs
The president signaled a willingness to scale back Medicare, a shift from his 2016 platform of protecting entitlement programs.
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By Alan Rappeport and Maggie Haberman
WASHINGTON President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.
The president made the comments on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Despite promises to reduce the federal budget deficit, it has ballooned under Mr. Trumps watch as a result of sweeping tax cuts and additional government spending.
Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes.
At some point they will be, Mr. Trump said, before pointing to United States economic growth. At the right time, we will take a look at that.
Mr. Trump suggested that curbing spending on Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly, was a possibility.
Were going to look, he said.
Spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is expected to cost the federal government more than $30 trillion through 2029, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Pat Lynch: The Democrats Have Walked Away From Us
The Democrats have walked away from us. They have walked away from police officers and they’ve walked away from the innocent people we protect, Lynch said. Democratic politicians have surrendered our streets and our institutions. The loudest voices have taken control, and our so-called leaders are scrambling to catch up with them.
Its worth noting that, according to The New York Times, major crimes have not risen in NYC and the papers analysis of city data shows that the recent spike in shootings is largely because of the number of arrests for gun crimes has sharply decreased.
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No Cuts To Medicare Enacted Yet
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump pledged that he wouldn’t cut Medicare, the federal health-care program that mainly serves Americans 65 and older.
So far, nothing has been enacted on Trump’s watch that cuts Medicare benefits, said Erin A. Taylor, a policy researcher at the RAND Corp. “To my knowledge there has been no actual policy enacted yet during the Trump administration that would cut Medicare funding in such a way as to have significant impact on beneficiaries,” she said.
However, Trump did offer a number of ideas for overhauling pieces of Medicare in his fiscal year 2019 budget proposal. Some, Taylor said, could leave Medicare beneficiaries better off, while some might not it is hard to say at this time whether the gains for beneficiaries would outweigh the losses.
Over 10 years, Trump’s 2019 budget proposal says it would cut Medicare spending by a cumulative $236 billion, including by reductions in “waste” and “fraud” and by changing the way drugs are priced and paid for in the program.
The largest cuts, Taylor said, would come from reducing Medicare’s payments for uncompensated care in hospitals and from changing payments for graduate medical education. But “the effects of these changes may trickle down to beneficiaries in terms of changes in sites of service or effects on incentives on the parts of hospitals to provide care, but those effects may not be negative,” Taylor said.
Vice President Pence Talks Law And Order On 3rd Night Of Gop Convention
Pence’s tack reflects a larger Republican strategy for the convention and the broader Trump re-election campaign that tries to focus voters on a generic fear of the unknown rather than problems at hand. It is, of course, Trump and Pence who have presided over the coronavirus crisis and its devastating impact on the economy, the civil unrest in the wake of police killings of Black men, women and children, and the emboldening of white supremacist militia groups.
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How Trump Is Proposing Changing Medicare Medicaid And Social Security
When it comes to Medicare, the White House has been very clear: Hes not cutting Medicare in this budget, Vought said. What we are doing is putting forward reforms that lower drug prices. Because Medicare pays a very large of drug prices in this country, has the impact of finding savings. We are also finding waste, fraud, and abuse.
Heres whats actually happening: This budget proposes finding $845 billion in savings over 10 years from Medicare as we know it. But $269 billion of that figure is reclassified under the Department of Health and Human Services, bringing the Medicare cuts to $575 billion. As Vox explained, the administration says it will achieve these cost reductions by targeting wasteful spending and provider payments and lowering prescription drug costs.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which advocates for fiscal responsibility, estimates that 85 percent of these cuts will come from reductions in provider payments, 5 percent would come from policies around medical malpractice, and 11 percent would come from reducing drug costs through the Medicare Part D program. Medicare Part D is the only area of these reforms that could raise out-of-pocket drug prices for some while lowering it for others. Otherwise, premiums, deductibles, and copays would largely be left unaffected.
But when it comes to Trumps proposed changes to Medicaid and Social Security, the intent is unambiguous: These are cuts to benefits.
Cdc Cuts Quarantine Time For Health Care Workers With Negative Test
WASHINGTON President Trump on Tuesday will announce a prescription plan drastically reducing the cost of insulin for American seniors who rely on Medicare.
The deal struck with the nations insulin manufacturers and health care providers will limit the co-pay for a months supply of insulin to $35 a 66 percent reduction to current costs, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said.
The initiative will apply to the 1 in 3 Medicare enrollees who have diabetes, which is approximately 3 million people.
The announcement comes on the heels of hearings into the rising cost of insulin in the United States, with one diabetic groom-to-be dying in 2019 after switching to a cheaper version to help pay for his wedding.
Having more predictable out of pocket costs will help seniors adhere to their doctors orders, Conway told reporters on a briefing call.
The initiative will be unveiled during an event in the White House Rose Garden with Trump and the nations health care executives.
The plan, effective from January 2021, will save seniors approximately 56 percent or an average of $446 each year in insulin co-pays, said Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
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