The Medicare “means testing” buzz grows louder
In the latest parrying and positioning over a deal to avert the year-end “fiscal cliff” of spending cuts and tax increases, leading congressional Democrats now say they’re willing to trade some increased means testing of Medicare in return for the Republicans accepting tax increases.
In Capitol Hill language, “means testing” (or more precisely “income relating”) means targeting benefits, payments or tax breaks to people who fall below a certain income level, or denying benefits, payments or tax breaks to people who are “too wealthy” to need them. …
Leading congressional Democrats – Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, as well as Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus — have indicated they’re open to more means testing in the Medicare program as part of an accord to avoid the fiscal cliff.
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So, under this plan, you don’t get Medicare benefits if you don’t need them… so I assume you also get to stop paying into Medicare. Right? /
Mr. Prodigy on December 11, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Let it burn
Good Lt on December 11, 2012 at 9:00 AM
So the whole “free for everyone” thing that was being bandied about (yes I said bandied) comes with conditions now? But I thought…I uh…thought “free” meant….uh…uh….
Bishop on December 11, 2012 at 9:11 AM
Wait…you mean the GOP wants means testing for Medicare? But I thought they were always for the evil 1%ers?!?!
My world has been turned upside down. /
changer1701 on December 11, 2012 at 9:13 AM
Why should Obama object – another opportunity to soak the “rich” and make sure they’re paying their “fair share.” The fact that you’ve paid into Medicare your entire working career doesn’t matter when BO wants you to pay more.
katiejane on December 11, 2012 at 9:15 AM
Not unless they raise the eligibility age. Although I am considered middleclass- I know this country can’t be fixed unless everyone feels some pain- not just the top 1%.
No more 0% tax brackets.
No more public employee guaranteed pensions.
No more free healthcare.
No more social welfare to illegals.
No more Obama phones.
Freeze expenditures now- no rate of growth increases!
Smack everyone
Bensonofben on December 11, 2012 at 9:16 AM
So in exchange for the Dems sacrifice of letting the “rich” to get hosed with means-testing they get higher taxes on the “rich”. Must be great to be a Dem.
RW Wacko on December 11, 2012 at 9:18 AM
Wow, so the “evil rich” provider class not only has to pay more in taxes, they now won’t get anything from the fund they’ve been paying into for their entire working life.
That’s fair/ sarc
LET IT BURN.
stenwin77 on December 11, 2012 at 9:36 AM
I often hear about “getting back what you paid into” in reference to Medicare and Social Security. It needs to be noted that these are pay as you go systems. They are Ponzi schemes. The money that you paid into has already been spent. There is no lock box and there is no pile of cash sitting around to be spent when you begin to collect. All there exist are obligations of succeeding generations to be taxed in order to pay for current beneficiaries. As structured this system is completely unsustainable.
antifederalist on December 11, 2012 at 9:51 AM
All snarkiness aside, how can those who expect the “rich” to carry the load, pay the majority of taxes, get eliminated based on means testing, lose deductions, etc, never stop and consider that maybe THEY should do more for themselves?
Are they so entrenched in being “not rich” that they can really convince themselves that it is fair for them to pay nothing and others to pay for running the govt, educating their kids, paying their rent, groviding them a cell phone? Do they as least giggle and think that they’ve “put one over on the rich guy?”
katiejane on December 11, 2012 at 9:58 AM
They’ve been programmed to so resent the ‘rich’ that they feel it would be unfair NOT to take from them. The wealthy don’t earn anything, after all…they just run roughshod over the great unwashed in order to amass their millions. Or so we’re told by Democrats and spineless GOPers. We don’t admire people for success in this country any more. Instead, we envy it, and we blame it for the laundry list of grievances that we increasingly look to DC to address.
changer1701 on December 11, 2012 at 10:18 AM
So, the older people that put ZERO effort into saving any money during their lives are the ones that will get everything for free.
The message that sends to younger generations is to go out and buy cars, expensive dinners, and boats. Don’t bother denying yourself any pleasure because you’ll only be penalized for saving money anyway.
blink on December 11, 2012 at 10:23 AM
This is idiotic. Democrats long term strategy has been to shut down Medicare in lieu of Obamacare…
So sure… Add means testing to Medicare and then blast the republicans in the next elections for adding death panels to Medicare and then jettison the whole thing for Obamacare 2.0 aka socialized medicine because its the ONLY answer.
Oh and the rich get taxed.
New party… NOW.
Skywise on December 11, 2012 at 10:27 AM
Given the mathematical acumen of this clown regime, you can be sure that the means testing will be reasonable.
I thought we voted for free Health Care?
CorporatePiggy on December 11, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Those who pay the most get nothing, those who pay the least or none get the most.
Sounds much like, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.
Where, oh where does that statement come from?
A person earning a hundred million lifetime pays $2,900,000 for medicare and apparently, if they do not waste all that money, they get nothing in return…
Sounds totally fair.
astonerii on December 11, 2012 at 10:54 AM
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to surrender their freedom in exchange for Government handouts, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and subservient station to which the Laws of Democrats, liberals, and obamites sentence them, a decent contempt for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the servitude.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created dependent upon Big Government, they are endowed by Big Government with temporary “benefits” until no more debt financing, that among these are obamaphones, food stamp cards, and lifetime unemployment with absolutely no job search requirement.
— B. Obama’s Declaration of Dependence
Washington Nearsider on December 11, 2012 at 11:17 AM