But listen carefully and you can hear the whistle blowing on another train barreling down the tracks.
Call it the Slash Medicare Express. The whistle is still a bit faint, but it is sending a clear warning signal.
A 2018 budget blueprint approved by Congress late last month would reduce Medicare spending by $473 billion over 10 years compared with the current baseline projection, and proposes $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, various Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits and cost sharing subsidies and other health spending. Republicans need the spending reductions to make room for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, mostly for corporations and wealthy households.
The budget plan does not include the specifics on how these cuts will be achieved. But previous Republican plans for Medicaid - the joint federal and state health insurance program for lower-income people and children - would have been disastrous for millions of older Americans.
via Reuters.
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National Committee President Warns Senators About GOP Tax & Budget Scheme.
- What’s more, the tax plan will increase the national debt and compel Republicans to cut seniors’ earned benefits more aggressively in the future – even though Social Security and Medicare Part A are self-financed and do not contribute to federal budget deficits.
- The bottom 80 percent of Americans would receive 13 percent of the tax cuts.
New tax plan will hinder care for older Americans.
- The Republican tax plan eliminates the deduction for medical expenses that nearly 9 million people have used to offset high out-of-pocket costs for care.