Democrats and Republicans have been sparring for months over the
federal government's two main social safety net programs, Social
Security and Medicare. In Tuesday's state of the Union address, President
Biden said some but not all Republicans want to target the programs
for cuts. His remarks, drawing jeers from some members of the GOP.
All of it, leading to an unusual moment of live policy, negotiation
and apparent agreement.
Social Security. Medicare is off off the books now.
I'm ready.
Let's all agree, and we apparently are a stand up for seniors.
Stand up and show them
But so security we will not cut Medicare.
Well. Republicans have accused President Biden of misrepresenting
their proposals. A handful of GOP lawmakers have floated making changes
to the programs. If we really want to talk about the debt and spending,
it's the entitlements program, we're down to a small fraction of
the federal Party to run the discretionary part of government. So
entitlement reform is a must for us to not become Greece
every year. Talk about exactly how we're going to fix Medicare and
Social Security.
Here's what's happening. No one that I know of wants to Sunset Medicare
associate purity, but what we're doing is we don't even talk about
it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years So Security goes bankrupt
in 12 years The president took his message to Florida today, promising
to protect the social programs crucial to seniors. Folks on fixed
incomes rely on Social Security. Medicare to get by.
They deserve a greater sense of security and dignity. I know that
a lot of Republicans
Their dream is to cut Social Security Medicare. Well, let me say
this.
If that's your dream.
I'm your nightmare.
And following all of this closely is our congressional correspondent
Lisa Desjardin DANCE ELISA, Let's dispense with the politics just
for a second. Shall we didn't talk about the underlying issue. Medicare
and Social Security both face the same basic problem and that people
are living a lot longer than they did when these programs were created.
Where are we with the solvency of both of these programs? Let's take
a minute to look at it. So this is according to the trustees for
these various programs first, Let's start with Medicare right now.
If Congress does nothing, Medicare will be insolvent in 2020.
Eight that used to be a date far away. It isn't anymore. That would
mean if again, nothing happens, The payments to medical providers
would be cut about 10%.
Social Security little bit longer, but still a major consideration
here is that retirees that retiree fund would be insolvent in 2034.
That would mean if Congress does nothing cuts of about 20% to benefits.
Another way to think about that for social Security. Jeff is anyone
in this country who is 56 years old or younger would see their social
Security benefits cut by at least 20%. If Congress does nothing got
more than what 60 Million Americans enrolled in these programs right
now, what are the possible?
Solutions. Okay, let's go over that, because it's not easy. There's
one reason they haven't done. This is because
These aren't easy decisions are going someone's going to have to
make sacrifices. Number 11 thing they could do is increase payroll
taxes. For some or all Americans may be richer. Americans pay more
than one idea we could. They could also raise the eligibility age
is even more or the criteria for qualifying for these programs. They
could also reform how Medicare pays medical providers. Specifically,
there could be a lot of savings there.
And then the bottom One is lower benefits for some or all Americans,
not as what you often hear referred to as cuts. But if you raise
eligibility that also means fewer benefits for fewer people. In all
of this stuff. Timing matters, The longer that Congress and the president
wait to make these decisions that deeper. Those kinds of cuts could
be in the future. So this all ties into the country's debt problem.
What would it mean for the bottom line of Congress does nothing to
address the solvency issue.
Think about Medicare and Social Security as almost the equal of the
regular agency budget for all of government. So if you don't address
the red ink and those programs programs, you have a major problem,
you have fewer options for what to cut. We talked to Larry Levitt
of the Kaiser Family Foundation about what exactly would happen if
Medicare and Social Security continue to bleed this reading.
If you want to balance the budget, and you take two big programs
in Medicare and Social Security off the table, Uh, probably defense
spending is largely off the table as well. The next big chunk of
the federal budget is is Medicaid. So if you're going to balance
the budget and take all these other tools off the table
You're probably looking at big cuts in in a program like Medicaid,
Medicaid, the program for lower income Americans and what he's saying
there is. Republicans say they want a balanced budget. But if you
don't change Medicare and Social Security or affect the Defense Department,
Medicaid is probably the next big target left. No one is proposing
cuts there. But he's saying
One plus one plus one. This is what's left. So what, then are Republicans.
What are Democrats proposing to do about this? Okay, Here's a region
myself. Exactly. We're gonna be talking this probably more down the
road. Let's talk. First of all about Florida Senator Rick Scott,
whose name comes up a lot in this. He is proposing something very
specific. He's using the word sunset and he says he wants to sunset.
Every federal program every five years. Basically, look at every
federal program every five years as part of that our Social Security
and Medicare he has not yet proposed specific cuts to those programs.
But listen, I talked him a lot about the national debt, and he is
really kind of out far front on the national debt. He does think
government needs to shrink and I'm waiting to see what his proposals
will be specifically for how he would deal with Medicare and Social
Security because he talks about it a lot other than that the truth
is, there's no plan.
There is not really a full proposal from Democrats or Republicans,
Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat. I said he wants to try and perhaps
proposed a commission.
But the White House initially has said no, We're not going to talk
about that, at least not as part of the national debt proposal. So
we have a major problem looming. It's coming fast. There's no plan
quite yet. Or no discussion yet, either. Lisa Desjardin, I learned