Democrats are engaged in indiscriminate attacks on President Trump’s 2020 budget proposal. They are ignoring some worthy ideas.
Senate Democrats, including several of the party’s presidential candidates, have savaged President Trump for proposing to reduce Medicare spending by several hundred billion dollars over the next decade.
Senator Kamala Harris of California said the proposed changes in Medicare “would hurt our seniors.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusettstweeted, “The Trump administration wants to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the #Medicare budget, all while giving billionaires and giant corporations huge tax breaks.”
The Hawaii senator Brian Schatz, the rare Democrat who is not running for president,offered the following summary: “One party wants to expand Medicare and Medicaid, and the other wants to cut them.”
But some cuts to Medicare make sense. Several sought by Mr. Trump closely resemble cuts that had been proposed by President Barack Obama. And the indiscriminate attacks by Senate Democrats are a reminder of how hard it has become for Congress to perform even the most basic kinds of prudent housekeeping in the public interest.
When Americans with Medicare visit a doctor’s office, the federal government pays a higher fee if that office happens to be owned by a hospital. This bonus payment serves no obvious purpose. A federal advisory board created to monitor Medicare spending has called for its elimination. And this month, the Trump administration proposed the change inits 2020 budget, along with several other measures recommended by nonpartisan experts to reduce payments to service providers without directly affecting the cost or availability of care.
Click here to see the full article on the New York Times website.