House Republicans: Protecting Medicare
“We took half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in the Affordable Care Act, the health care bill, already.”
—Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA),CNBC interview, October 2011
Contrary to his rhetoric, President Obama’s federal takeover of healthcare law devastates Medicare to pay for new entitlement spending. The cuts to Medicare payment rates and the establishment of a 15-member board of unelected bureaucrats (IPAB) to implement price controls will hasten the insolvency of the program, hurting current beneficiaries and breaking Medicare’s promise to future generations. The American people know who really “voted to end Medicare.”
Democrats assault on Medicare
- ObamaCare cuts Medicare by over $700 billion from 2013-2022. This includes a $308 billion cut to Medicare Advantage (including interactions), $294 billion cut to hospitals (includes DSH), $66 billion cut to home health, $39 billion cut to nursing homes, and $17 billion cut to hospice, among others.
- House Republicans’ Path to Prosperity budget stops the raid on Medicare and ensures that any current-law Medicare savings are devoted to saving Medicare. It is crucial that policymakers ensure Medicare’s solvency into the next decade if we want to protect the current arrangements of those in or near retirement.
- All told, ObamaCare raids the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (Part A) by $517 billion and Supplemental Medicare Insurance Trust Fund (Part B) by $247 billion to pay for a massive new entitlement from 2013-2022.
- Obama Administration officials have repeatedly warned that ObamaCare’s Medicare cuts are so drastic that seniors' access to care might be jeopardized. Even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that the cuts “might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time.”
- Because Democrats chose to use Medicare as a slush fund to pay for a massive government takeover of health care, the program is expected to go bankrupt by 2024.
President’s failed policies are making jobs scarce
- Then unemployment rate is 8.3 percent and has been above 8 percent for 42 months for the first time since the Great Depression.
- The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that President Obama’s health care law will reduce the labor supply by 800,000 thanks to the law’s perverse incentives, which according to CBO “will effectively increase marginal tax rates,” thereby discouraging work. Other estimates are as high as 670,000 lost job opportunities per year.
- After more than three and a half years in office, the president said “We tried our plan, and it worked.” It worked? There are 316,000 less people working today than when the president was inaugurated. What would it look like if his plan hadn’t “worked?”
- Women have been among the hardest hit by the president’s economic failure, with nearly 1 million more women unemployed. Since President Obama took office in January 2009, the number of unemployed women in American has increased by 860,000, from 5 million to 5.86 million according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- The president is demanding a massive tax increase on small businesses that independent estimates say will destroy over 700,000 more jobs.
House Republicans have a plan to create jobs by cutting the red tape, stopping the tax hike, producing more American energy, and solving our debt crisis.
For additional information, contact:
The House Republican Conference Policy Office
