The Democrats on the Super Committee, in their efforts to reach an deal with Republicans, have offered a new deficit reduction package and just like their last offer this one also contains cuts to Medicare benefits. From Politico: Supercommittee Democrats quietly floated details late Wednesday of a $2.3 trillion tax-and-cut proposal that includes $400 billion [...]

According to exclusive reporting from Reuters the Democrats on the Super Committee are offering to cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits as part of a roughly $3 trillion grand bargain, which would well exceed the $1.2 trillion minimum goal the committee is tasked with meeting. From Reuters: It calls for between $200 billion and $300 billion [...]

The percentage of young American adults between the ages of 18-25 without health insurance decreased over the past year, while the percentage of adults over 26 without insurance increased, according to Gallup. The main reason young adults are bucking the overall trend is that a provision in the Affordable Care Act allowed individuals under the [...]

An article in Politico about President Obama’s deficit speech, by Carrie Budoff Brown and Ben Smith, starts with the line, “President Barack Obama finally gave his liberal critics exactly what they wanted.” I want to make it clear that in no way was this deficit speech what I wanted. With unemployment over 9 percent and [...]

President Obama’s deficit speech may be viewed as the moment the Obama administration fully pivots away from trying to reach bipartisan compromise, to instead focusing on winning 2012 by bashing the Republican Party. The first half of President Obama’s first term was marked by an obsession with reaching bipartisan compromise. Obama wasted an absurd amount [...]

I was pleasantly surprised that President Obama in his deficit speech today didn’t publicly endorse cuts to Social Security benefits or call for any specific major cuts to Medicare benefits. This is a significant improvement compared to the trial balloons we have been seeing for the past months, which indicated raising the Medicare eligibility age [...]

Powerful political and lobbying forces continue to line up behind the terrible idea to raise the age for Medicare eligibility. The latest to join the ongoing push is the Healthcare Leadership Council. From the Healthcare Leadership Council’s recommendations to the Super Committee: Gradually increase the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67. This transition would [...]

The threat to Medicare is very real and pressing. Last night the President suggested he still wants to change Medicare in a way “some in his party” won’t like. We are seeing a convergence of deficit hysteria, a Democratic president who wants to have a “Nixon goes to China moment” with Medicare and powerful corporate lobbyists in pursuit of bigger profits.

I don’t want to be entirely cynical about President Obama’s jobs speech yesterday. Some of the ideas in his proposal, like the money to fix up old schools, are great. He is finally putting his rhetorical focus on the issue the American people actually wanted him to be talking all along. If the package Obama [...]