Medicare Double-Talk

Entitlements: You'd think liberals would love at least one idea House Speaker John Boehner pitched in his Monday talk — making the rich pay for their Medicare benefits. Instead, they're throwing darts at it.

In response to a question from billionaire Pete Peterson, Boehner gave a hearty endorsement to the idea of "means testing" Medicare benefits.

"There's no reason why we should subsidize Pete Peterson's premium," he said. "I'm sorry. He ought to pay the full cost of his premium to be in Medicare."

While normally eager to sock it to the rich, the left unleashed a barrage of attacks against Boehner.

The liberal Talking Points Memo, for example, whined that "it would mean requiring a wealthier subset of seniors to pay thousands more dollars a year out-of-pocket, after they paid their whole lives into a program meant to significantly limit their costs."

The Arkansas Time's Max Brantley was more blunt: "This would, in time, kill Medicare."

What's their beef?

As TPM's Brian Beutler put it, means testing Medicare "cuts against the basic compact of entitlements — that by treating wealthy and poor beneficiaries equally, the programs win much broader buy-in from the public, which protects them from the sorts of political attacks that make welfare programs so vulnerable."
In other words, unless the rich get the same benefits as everyone else, support will crumble. It's why the left opposes means testing any middle-class entitlements.

But it's an argument based on complete ignorance.

First, it's simply false that "broader buy-in" is needed to protect entitlements. Medicaid — the health program just for the poor — saw its budget shoot up 564% in the past two decades, while Medicare grew 383%.

Second, Democrats have advocated means testing Medicare in the past without protest. It was part of President Clinton's failed 1993 health reform bill, as well as a "blue dog" Democrats' 1997 balanced budget plan.

Finally, a chunk of Medicare is already means tested.

As part of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, wealthy seniors now pay a bigger Part B premium than their poorer counterparts. Yet somehow, the program has managed to survive intact.

Medicare is in deep trouble, and ignorant, reactionary posturing by liberals who oppose any and all reforms — even perfectly sensible ones — for political gain, isn't going to fix it.