Huge Crowds Gather To Both Watch And Protest Trump Speech
Jeff Van Drew, the New Jersey Republican who changed his party affiliation after voting against Donald Trumps impeachment, will speak at the Republican convention on Thursday.
Van Drew joins a limited number of Democrats or former Democrats who spoke on Trumps behalf at his re-nominating convention. It provides a contrast with Biden, who featured higher-profile Republicans speaking at his event.
What Seniors Need To Know About Trumps 2021 Federal Budget
Trump’s proposed budget reduces Medicare spending by 7% over the next ten years, among other cuts to … senior programs.
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Today, President Donald Trump and the White House Office of Management and Budget released a proposed 2021 budget. Trumps budget includes cuts to key senior programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security Disability Insurance. While the proposed budget would slash funding for many programs that seniors rely on, other important areas for seniors, like veterans healthcare, would get a boost.
Seniors should think of the proposed budget as President Trumps wish list: not all of his proposals will take effect. Most, but not all, of his proposals would require the cooperation of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate.
Here are the line items from Trumps 2021 budget that would have the greatest impact on seniors.
The Budget Would Reduce Medicare Spending
President Trumps budget would reduce Medicare spending by a total of $756 billion between 2021 and 2030, a decrease of 7%.
How Trump Would Cut Medicare By $818b In A Decade
Kimberly Leonard, Senior Healthcare Writer |
President Trump’s proposed budget released Monday appeared to call on Congress to cut $818 billion from Medicare over 10 years, despite a long-standing promise from the president that he wouldn’t touch the popular program.
The budget does not outline specific cuts to Medicare, nor does it propose a cost-saving plan along the lines of an idea from former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to give beneficiaries subsidies to buy private coverage. Instead, the budget envisions spending reductions through Congress passing prescription-drug legislation and through efforts to reduce improper payments to healthcare providers.
“He’s not cutting Medicare in this budget,” Russell Vought, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, said at a White House press briefing Monday. “What we are doing is putting forward reforms that lower drug prices, that, because Medicare pays a very large share of drug prices in this country, has the impact of finding savings. We are also fighting waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Vought said that Medicare spending would still rise and that beneficiaries wouldn’t face any “structural” changes in their benefits.
From a pure political perspective, this is – by far – the most radical, unpopular proposal that any 2020 candidate had put forward thus far. Every Democrat should be talking about this every day. Start running the ads now and dont stop until Election Day.
Jon Favreau
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How Many Presidents Have Cut Medicare Benefits
The Medicare program has survived eight presidents between Lyndon B. Johnson and Donald J. Trump, including Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama.
Since its inception, Medicare has expanded to cover people with disabilities and end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis or kidney transplant, as well as people 65 or older. People under 65 with serious illnesses may require expensive medical care. So Medicare funding had to expand to cover these people.
In 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act under President George W. Bush made the biggest changes to the program since it was founded. This act introduced Medicare Advantage plans and the optional prescription drug Medicare benefit, Medicare Part D.
Presidents Health Reform Vision
The budget anticipates $844 billion in health-care savings over the next 10 years from the presidents health reform vision, a vague plan for replacing the Affordable Care Act. About $744 billion of that would come from changes to Medicaid that would end what the administration describes as the financial bias that currently favors able-bodied working-age adults over the truly vulnerable.
Under the ACA, millions of uninsured low-income people gained coverage for the first time as part of the laws Medicaid expansion. Trumps plan would end federal dollars which dwarf the states contributions possibly making some 13 million people again uninsured, if states are unable to maintain expanded eligibility, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.
The administration also suggested its health reform vision could save money through instituting greater price transparency, lowering prescription-drug prices, and ending surprise bills but the budget does not offer a plan for accomplishing those initiatives or indicate exactly how much money each could save.
According to the budget, the plan would protect the most vulnerable, especially those with preexisting conditions.” Yet at the same time, the Trump administration is supporting a Texas lawsuit seeking to do away with the ACA entirely including its popular coverage guarantee for people with preexisting conditions.
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Other proposals would cut down on reimbursement rates to healthcare providers, reducing how much doctors, hospitals, and hospices are paid for providing healthcare. Cutting Medicare reimbursement rates is a controversial strategy in the past, its received both support and criticism from Democrats and Republican alike. Some say cutting reimbursement rates saves taxpayers money by cutting into medical industry profits. And the Trump administrations budgets highlights specific instances where they believe reimbursement rates for doctors are excessive: for example, they cite the fact that doctors offices owned by hospitals are often paid more for performing the same procedures than independent physicians.
But cutting reimbursement rates also means that some seniors could lose access to their favorite doctors. Dan Adcock, director of government relations at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said of the cuts to Medicare, he was most worried about the lower reimbursement rates. When reimbursement rates decrease, “you start to affect access, because doctors decide they can’t make a decent living,” said Adcock.
The Budget Takes Aim At Social Security Disability Insurance
Trumps proposed budget contains a number of changes to Social Security Disability Insurance . SSDI is a federal program that protects workers who develop a life-changing disability after having paid into the fund by earning work credits.
Veterans Issues Are a Bright Spot
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Things To Know About Trump’s Budget Plan For Medicare Medicaid
Trump’s budget would reduce $451B in Medicare spending over 10 years.
Trumps budget is insult to working families: Pelosi
President Donald Trump said he wouldnt touch Medicare before pitching a budget plan that would do exactly that, along with steep cuts to Medicaid. Democrats are calling it savage and heartless, while administration officials are insisting they are only slowing explosive growth in future years and that current Medicare benefits would remain untouched.
Here are three things to know about the election-year fight on health care spending:
Trump proposed spending $1.6 trillion less on future health care spending, including $451 billion less for Medicare.
On Twitter, two days before releasing his budget, the president said, we will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare. It was a promise he also made in his State of the Union address.
Whether he broke that promise depends upon how you look at it.
Theres no doubt the presidents budget plan would whack away at federal spending on health care over the next 10 years, with an estimated $1.6 trillion reduction, including $451 billion less spent on Medicare and $920 billion less for Medicaid.
Overall, HHS stated, funding levels will be no lower each year than they are today.
Democrats were unmoved.
“Dont get in front of an audience and say Im here to protect Medicare and Social Security and put a budget like this forward,” Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday.
Democrats Have Already Signaled Trumps Budget Is Going Nowhere
While Trump tries to have it both ways by proposing entitlement cuts while claiming hes not really doing that, Treasury Department spokesperson Monica Crowley was somewhat more straightforward during a Monday morning appearance on Fox Business.
Asked by host Stuart Varney if she agrees that the new budget hits the safety net, Crowley said the president understands that Washingtons habit of out of control spending without consequence has to be stopped.
Treasury Secretary Assistant Sec. Monica Crowley defends cuts to entitlements in Trumps new 2021 budget proposal: The president also understands that Washingtons habit of out of control spending without consequence has to be stopped.
Aaron Rupar
But for Trump, not all spending is bad. While his budget cuts non-defense spending by 5 percent, he actually slates defense spending for an increase to $740.5 billion for fiscal year 2021.
Budget proposals are just that proposals. And while Trump insists that Republicans are the ones trying to save entitlements from destruction, the irony is that the truth is exactly the opposite: Entitlement cuts are dead on arrival as long as Democrats control a chamber of Congress.
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Former Democrat Jeff Van Drew Explains Why He Switched To Gop
Meanwhile, scores of former Republican administration officials have endorsed Bidens campaign, including dozens of former George W. Bush staffers who announced their intent to back Biden this week.
Theres also a small group of former Trump administration officials who worked in the Department of Homeland Security who have chosen to back Biden.
But Van Drews speech provides Trump a lane to show the opposite effect of his presidency on some Democrats. Trump made a big show of Van Drew switching parties during the impeachment process and hosted him at the White House for a meeting.
Rudy Giuliani, who has served as Donald Trumps lawyer and a top confidant, in his speech Thursday night will attack Joe Biden over violence in U.S. cities over the summer.
Giulianis speech will fall in line with what has been the main theme of Trumps convention hammering Biden over protests against police brutality, some of which have led to violence or vandalism. Just this week, a pro-police sympathizer allegedly shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin after a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot seven times by police.
Their silence was so deafening that it reveals an acceptance of this violence because they will accept anything they hope will defeat President Donald Trump, he added.
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.
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Trump Budget Calls For Cutting Medicaid Aca By About $1 Trillion
Donald TrumpWendy Sherman takes leading role as Biden’s ‘hard-nosed’ Russia negotiatorSenate needs to confirm Deborah Lipstadt as antisemitism envoy NowFormer acting Defense secretary under Trump met with Jan. 6 committee: reportMOREs proposed budget includes about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act over a decade, analysts said.
The budget released Monday includes $844 billion over 10 years in cuts from the Presidents health reform vision, a stand-in for the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare. There are also more than $150 billion in additional cuts from implementing Medicaid work requirements and other changes to the program, which would result in some people losing coverage if they did not meet the requirements.
The cuts drew swift condemnation from Democrats, who pointed out that Trump himself promised not to cut Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, during his 2016 campaign.
Im not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid, Trump said in 2015, adding, Every other Republican is going to cut it.
Americans quality, affordable health care will never be safe with President Trump, Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiGOP senator knocks Biden for ‘spreading things that are untrue’ in voting rights speechSen. Ron Johnson: Straight from the horse’s mouthClyburn says he’s worried about losing House, ‘losing this democracy’ MORE said in a statement on the budget proposal.
Trump Broke This Promise From The Beginning
This is Trump on the campaign trail in 2015:
I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.
Donald J. Trump May 7, 2015
Trumps budgets and the policies he has supported around health care and government spending in Congress reflect the opposite. Some of this can be attributed to Trumps appointed budget chief Mick Mulvaney the former Congress member who was part of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus has long rallied for cutting Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
In fact, Mulvaney once bragged to a Politico reporter that he tricked Trump into accepting a proposal to cut Social Security by calling SSDI just disability insurance spinning it to the president as general welfare reform. The idea has been in every single one of Trumps budget proposals to Congress since the president came to office.
Then there was the Republican Obamacare repeal push every bill proposed massive cuts to Medicaid in order to pay for tax cuts elsewhere. Trump supported every iteration of Republicans Obamacare repeal-and-replace bills. He even held a party for House Republicans in the White House Rose Garden when the lower chamber of Congress narrowly passed a proposal that slashed more than $800 billion from Medicaid over 10 years.
Now his policy positions around those programs break from that promise.
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