Medicare means many things to many people. To seniors, it's a program providing good, low-cost healthcare at a stage in life when it's most needed.
To Congress, it's beginning to look more like a piggy bank to be raided.
That's the only conclusion one can draw from a provision slipped into a measure to extend and increase the government's Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides assistance to workers who lose their jobs because of trade deals. The measure, introduced by Rep. David Reichert (R-Wash.), proposes covering some of the $2.7-billion cost of the extension by slicing $700 million out of doctor and hospital reimbursements for Medicare.
Dave Reichert, Republican, has been in Congress for far too long.
Further perils of the TPP, courtesy of Michael Hiltzik, LA Times:
... Kara M. Reynolds of American University and her associate John S. Palatucci found that workers receiving trade assistance did scarcely better than other laid-off workers at finding new employment -- and that they earned on average 30% less at their new jobs, compared with the roughly 10% pay cut faced by unassisted workers.
One reason, they posited, is that the workers in the trade program were in worse-hit industries and were trying to replace relatively high wages. But taking advantage of job training also kept them out of the workforce longer, which may have made them less desirable to employers.
What makes the Medicare cut especially stealthy is that it's slipped into the federal budget for 2024 -- it won't even show up on the books until the assistance program itself has expired. Moreover, it's pitched as an extension to the 2011 sequester, possibly to make it seem all the more painless.
Kudos to Keith Ellison, Democrat, (MN-05), for fielding Reichert's attack on Medicare.
At present, Jason Ritchie, who ran against Reichert in 2014, is the only apparent candidate for 2016. I hope Mr. Ritchie makes a statement on Reichert's sneak attack on medicare.