The Effort To Protect Medicare

The Wall Street Journal and other media are reporting definitively on the Obama deficit plan to be announced on Monday. The big news: the President will not propose raising the Medicare eligibility age. more »

Washington, DC felt like a city on a deathwatch this week, after a series of White House news leaks said the President would announce cuts to Medicare and Social Security benefits next Monday.

One plan was to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security. Another involved an accounting gimmick that would cut the already-inadequate cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits - and raise taxes on the middle class, too.

The response was negative, as most people might expect. Very, very negative.

Come Monday

Many elected Democrats have been dreading next Monday's speech ever since these trial balloons were first floated. They saw these proposals, probably rightly, as a fatal blow to their reelection chances.

Another dark cloud was hanging over public interest groups who represent older Americans, sound economic policy, or improvements to our health care system. They understood the damage these ideas could cause.

That was then, this is now. Today the clouds lifted ... some of them, anyway. more »

Yesterday some prominent people signed a letter urging the so-called "Super Committee" to "go big" on cuts to the Federal budget. Many of these people would describe themselves as "moderate" and "centrist." Some would call themselves liberal. I've met a few of them casually, both Republicans and Democrats, and they seemed like very nice people.

They're nothing like the audience members at the Republican Presidential debate who shouted "yes!" when asked if society should let a young man die because he didn't buy health insurance. They're courteous and civilized, and were undoubtedly appalled by the shouts from the crowd.

That sort of thing isn't done in the salons or think tanks of Washington. You wouldn't catch anyone who signed that letter behaving that way.

But are they really all that different? more »

Here's an interview we did with Sam Seder today (Monday) on his Majority Report show. It's about raising the Medicare eligibility age. Great discussion (it's always a great show):

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As President Obama prepares to give a major speech on jobs before a joint session of Congress, what does the public think the country should do?

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When it comes to the "Grand Bargain" they're pushing in Washington, the movie posters for The Fly said it best: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Othe people are using our lives as bargaining chips. Whether it's the so-called Congressional "Super Committee" or the President's push for that grandé-sized deal, they want to look "grand" while we get stuck with the "bargain."

The Capital's misplaced focus on austerity has led to plenty of bad ideas, but one of the worst is raising the Medicare retirement age to 67. It may be the most destructive deal to come out of Washington since the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It's unfair, short-sighted, and will actually cost the economy more money than we're spending today.

No Democratic President would accept an idea like that, right? Right?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. more »