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Medicare advocates celebrated Ryan’s announcement, noting that he will leave Congress without accomplishing his lifelong goal of reforming Medicare.
“House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress lifts a very dark cloud that has hung over older Americans for nearly two decades,” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said in a statement.
“During that time, Speaker Ryan has been the Privatizer-in-Chief on Capitol Hill – advocating to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.”
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
Farewell to Paul Ryan and His Insidious
“Entitlement Reforms.”
- As America’s Privatizer-in-Chief, he spearheaded attempts to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.
- He passed legislation in the House to cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid by imposing per capita caps and turning it into a block grant program.
House GOP Votes to Gut Medicaid, Weaken Medicare & Put Seniors’ healthcare at Risk
The National Committee strongly condemns the American Health Care Act (AHCA) just passed by the House, which needlessly puts the healthcare of millions of older Americans in jeopardy. “Despite the bill’s name, risking the health of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens to give the wealthy an $880 billion tax cut is tremendously uncaring — and does not reflect real American values…”
More on this issue via Entitled to Know.
The first is simply the use of the term “entitlements.” While this has a clear meaning to policy wonks, it is likely that most viewers won’t immediately know that “entitlements” means the Social Security and Medicare their parents receive. It’s a lot easier for politicians to talk about cutting wasteful “entitlements” than taking away seniors’ Social Security and Medicare.
via Truth Out.
Related Reading:
Republican Senators Say Now’s the Time to Cut Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.
May is Older Americans Month, but the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans are putting a serious damper on the celebration. Yes, candidate Trump promised not to touch Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
But his administration has been actively undermining those pledges. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney — who once called Social Security a Ponzi scheme — questioned the legitimacy of Social Security Disability Insurance — and wouldn’t promise a Presidential veto of legislation to privatize Medicare (a pet project of House Speaker Paul Ryan).
President Trump champions the GOP’s American Health Care Act, which guts
Medicaid, undermines the solvency of Medicare, and allows insurers to
charge older Americans up to five times as much as people in their 20s.
More on this issue here via The Hill.
While this has a clear meaning to policy wonks, it is likely that most viewers won’t immediately know that “entitlements” means the Social Security and Medicare their parents receive. It’s a lot easier for politicians to talk about cutting wasteful “entitlements” than taking away seniors’ Social Security and Medicare.
Dean Baker via Truth Out.
Related Reading:
Will America’s Seniors Vote Against Their Own Self-Interests…Again?
Mulvaney, who supports Social Security and Medicare reforms, told CNBC ‘we’re working on’ persuading Trump to embrace entitlement reform, including changes to Social Security Disability Insurance.
But I feel from all the budgets that I’ve passed, normalizing entitlement reform, pushing the cause of entitlement reform and the house passing entitlement reform, I’m very proud of that fact. But yeah, of course more work needs to be done, and it really is entitlements. That’s where the work needs to be done, and I’m going to keep fighting for that.
Speaker Paul Ryan via Politico.
Related Reading:
Seniors Relieved as America’s Privatizer-In-Chief Heads for the Exits.
- House Speaker Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress lifts a very dark cloud that has hung over older Americans for nearly two decades. During that time, Speaker Ryan has been the Privatizer-in-Chief on Capitol Hill – advocating to turn Medicare into a voucher program and to gamble retirees’ Social Security benefits on the whims of Wall Street.
On Tuesday, April 19, 2016 the Older Americans Act (OAA) was reauthorized for three years – an important bipartisan accomplishment. Enacted in July 1965 along with Medicare and Medicaid, the law is a key piece of policy that empowers the Administration for Community Living (ACL) to fund programs across the country that are dedicated to helping seniors stay in their communities.
via Altarum.
Related Reading:
Asked Monday if the Trump administration would address “entitlement reform,” White House chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow said it will “probably” look at “larger entitlements” next year. Entitlement reform generally refers to changes or cuts to large government social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or food stamps.
via CNBC.
Related Reading:
Trump Advisor Re-Affirms Commitment to Cutting Social Security & Medicare.
- This aligns with comments from National Republican Congressional Committee chair, Rep. Steve Stivers, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and several other key GOP members about the need to pay for last year’s tax cuts by ‘reforming’ Social Security and Medicare. ‘Reforming,’ of course, means cutting and privatizing.
Older Americans are especially vulnerable to scams and identity theft, and Medicare is doing something about it. U.S. seniors will start receiving new identification cards next year as part of an effort to protect them from the rising risk of fraud.
But that is the only good news surrounding a sweeping federal initiative to bolster fraud defenses by reducing the widespread use of Social Security numbers as identifiers throughout the government.
Medicare cards use an identifier called the Health Insurance Claim Number (HICN) - but right now it is the same as your Social Security number. Starting in April 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will be mailing new cards to enrollees that use a unique, randomly assigned number.
More on this issue can be found via Reuters.