The federal government will rack up $12.2 trillion in deficits through 2029, according to a new projection from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an $809 billion increase from its last projection in May.
The CBO, Congress’s official budgeting scorekeeper, said that the deficits would average 4.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) through the next decade, a significant increase from the 2.9 percent average over the past 50 years.
via The Hill.
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Some Medicare beneficiaries would face higher prescription drug costs under President Donald Trump’s budget even as the sickest patients save thousands of dollars, a complex trade-off that may make it harder to sell Congress on the plan in an election year.
In budget documents, the administration said its proposals strike a balance between improving the popular “Part D” prescription benefit for the 42 million seniors enrolled, while correcting design flaws that increase program costs for taxpayers. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is expected to testify on the proposal later this week in Congress.
Trump has made bringing down drug costs a top priority, but his administration’s plan would create winners and losers. The high cost of medicines is the leading health care concern among consumers.
Independent experts said the administration’s plan will help beneficiaries with the highest prescription drug costs, an estimated 1 million of the sickest patients, those whose individual bills reach a total of more than $8,418 apiece.
But about 4.5 million seniors in the group just behind them could end up spending more of their own money. That’s because the budget proposes a change in how Medicare accounts for manufacturer discounts received by patients whose total bills range between $3,750 and $8,418. They could wind up paying about $1,000 more.
via New York Times.
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President Trump released an FY 2019 budget today proposing deep spending reductions for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and myriad other federal programs that help older Americans, the poor, and people with disabilities.
- Some $500 billion in Medicare spending reductions over ten years, most of which would affect providers and suppliers, but could potentially impact beneficiaries, too.
Donald Trump said repeatedly on the campaign trail that he would not cut Social Security or Medicare, and in his first budget as president, he is sticking to that promise. But congressional Republicans don’t believe Trump will stand by his pledge forever ― in fact, they’re counting on him to break it.
via Huffington Post.
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- Trump Snubs Seniors in Speech to Congress.
- He did not even utter the words “Social Security” or “Medicare” in his entire hour-long address.
Flashback Post:
President Trump’s latest budget is an epic train wreck for the old, disabled, college students/Millennials, first responders and working people. It’s a boon to defense companies/The Pentagon and the ultra-wealthy.
Ultimately, though, most Americans will pay dearly for the cruelties of this budget – if passed by Congress – since it wrecks what remains of the country’s tattered social safety net and will signal to markets that higher public debt and interest rates are on the way.
If you aren’t rich and you become seriously ill or disabled before qualifying for Medicare at 65, this budget is punishing you in a profound way. It also damages public education and does nothing to rein in the runaway cost of college.
via FORBES.
Related Reading:
- Trump Budget Shatters President’s Promise on Social Security, Medicaid.
- Other media outlets are hedging by saying the Trump budget doesn’t cut “core” Social Security benefits – whatever that means. Social Security Disability Insurance is a crucial and inseparable part of Social Security. Period. No amount of parsing can cleave the two. When you cut a program, you hurt people – whether the cuts affect “core” benefits or not.
- Trump 2018 Budget Literally Leaves Seniors in the Cold.
- President Trump’s FY 2018 budget drastically cuts programs that benefit America’s oldest – and most vulnerable – citizens.
President Donald Trump on Monday released his 2018 budget, a 160-page proposal that calls for slashing billions from popular social safety net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, as well as increasing military spending and funds for his proposed border wall.
The budget is merely a blueprint for what Trump wants to see, and it’s unlikely to be enacted, given that Congress passed its own two-year budget on Friday.
Still, it lays out Trump’s priorities for how taxpayer funds should be spent. And it shows that Trump is abandoning a key campaign promise, in which he said he would never cut Medicare nor Medicaid— or government-run health insurance programs for seniors and the poorest Americans.
In fact, over the next 10 years, Trump is seeking a $266 billion cut to Medicare, and a $214 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as the food stamp program.
via Mic Dot Com.
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President Trump’s budget proposes over $500 billion in cuts to Medicare.
Many of these savings come from cuts to Medicare providers and suppliers, which in turn could affect the care that is available to Medicare beneficiaries. Savings proposals in the President’s budget include:
- Establishing a uniform payment system for post-acute care providers – skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and long-term care hospitals, saving $80.2 billion over 10 years.
- Implementing a new system for Medicare payments to home health agencies, saving $16.7 billion over 10 years.
- Modifying Medicare payments to hospitals for uncompensated care, saving $69.5 billion over 10 years.
- Reducing Medicare payments to institutional providers from 65 percent to 25 percent of bad debts that are due to beneficiaries’ non-payment of deductibles and coinsurance, saving $37 billion over l0 years.
The report, called “Families & Seniors Foot the Bill for GOP Tax Cuts,” includes state-by-state and district-by-district level data, and concludes that the average beneficiary from social safety net programs would stand to lose $1,500 a year under proposed cuts. And it comes as President Donald Trump is teasing another potential tax cut ahead of the midterm elections.
The House Budget Committee vote in June proposing $2 trillion in entitlement cuts got little attention, but the new report comes as Democrats are trying to short-circuit a surge in GOP enthusiasm around the midterms that could hinder their attempt to win back control of the House and, especially, the Senate.
via NBC News.
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Sen. McConnell Reminds Retirees What They Have to Lose in November.
President Donald Trump will propose cutting entitlement programs by $1.7 trillion, including Medicare, in a fiscal 2019 budget that seeks billions of dollars to build a border wall, improve veterans’ health care and combat opioid abuse and that is likely to be all but ignored by Congress.
The entitlement cuts over a decade are included in a White House summary of the budget obtained by Bloomberg News. The document says that the budget will propose cutting spending on Medicare, the health program for the elderly and disabled, by $237 billion but doesn’t specify other mandatory programs that would face reductions, a category that also includes Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and agricultural subsidies.
via Bloomberg.
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We remember when then Candidate Trump promised not to cut earned benefits programs:
We have been keeping track of his administration’s actions on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and health care.
You can read the full timeline by clicking here.
Lawmakers returning to Washington this coming week will find a familiar quagmire on health care legislation and a budget deadline dramatized by the prospect of a protracted battle between President Donald Trump and Democrats over his border wall.
Trump’s GOP allies control Congress, but they’ve been unable to send him a single major bill as his presidency faces the symbolic 100-day mark on April 29 — the very day when the government, in a worst-case scenario, could shut down.
via New York Times.
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The GOP’s “Really, Really Good” Healthcare Reset is Really, Really Worse.
The Republican tax plan is part of a broader agenda that aims to pay for tax cuts by cutting investments in low and middle income families, including Medicaid, education, housing and nutrition assistance. Trump and the Republicans are likely to finance their tax cuts with higher deficits. But as we have seen repeatedly in the past, they will then use deficits created by tax cuts to justify slashing investments in children and families.
Medicaid, which covers 34 million children, including nearly half of all children with special health-care needs, may be the most vulnerable to cuts given that Trump and the Republicans have made their intention to cut health care to pay for millionaire tax cuts abundantly clear in their efforts to repeal ObamaCare. The White House and House budgets also cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves more than 20 million families with children, by more than one-fifth and gut investments like K-12 education, affordable housing and public health. These investments are critical for improving the lives of children and their long-term prospects into adulthood.
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
GOP Tax Cuts Could Cost Seniors in the Long Run.
- Republicans have already called for deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and would no doubt come after those programs looking for massive savings. Seniors’ earned benefits could be used as piggy banks to pay for reckless tax cuts that largely benefit the wealthy.
GOP tax scam bill: Raises the deficit by $1.5 trillion.
President Trump’s budget: Cuts $1.7 trillion from seniors, the poor, and the disabled.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a plea for expanding Social Security benefits on Tuesday… in support of Rep. John Larson’s Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust bill. Read more here: https://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/rep-larson-introduces-social-security-2100-a-sacred-trust-bill/. #Secure2100 #SocialSecurity