Last week the Obama administration finally released the Medicare Trustees’ report on the financial status of Medicare, and Democrats immediately gloated how ObamaCare enhances Medicare’s financial position.
But then Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, released an unprecedented “Alternative Report” clarifying that the situation might be a teensy bit less optimistic than President Obama claims.
The chief actuary, being a 15-year civil servant and not one of the president’s yes men, apparently felt compelled both to put the public on notice as well as preserve his own reputation as a straight shooter—which is still important to a handful of people in Washington.
See, the Medicare “savings” only occur IF the projected Medicare cuts are actually implemented. If Congress postpones or ignores the cuts—which it surely will—no savings. Thus Foster says, “the projections shown in the [Trustees] report do not represent the ‘best estimate’ of actual future Medicare expenditures.” Talk about understatements!
For example, Foster notes that physician reimbursements are supposed to drop 23 percent at the end of this year. But for budget reasons they were supposed to drop every year since 2002 but haven’t. Congress always stops the cuts, whether it is “paid for” by other budget adjustments or not. Every politician and policy expert knows that; only the honest ones admit it.
This pattern is consistent with Democrats’ other spending binges. In February, Democrats passed pay-as-you-go (“paygo”) legislation, promising to pay for—that is, find financial offsets—any new spending. And yet Democrats have pushed through a number of spending bills since then with no “pay fors.”
They were even so bold as to demonize Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning for holding up a $10 billion extension for jobless benefits at the end of February because he wanted the new spending offset—as Democrats had promised only three weeks earlier. His fellow Republicans shamelessly left him hanging until Bunning conceded. Just a few weeks ago Democrats did it again.
Does anyone really believe they will implement the current cuts when the time comes? Medicare’s chief actuary doesn’t. Neither should you!