Krugman: I Hope This Isn’t True [View all]

[ProSense]

I Hope This Isn’t True

Ezra Klein says that the shape of a fiscal cliff deal is clear: only a 37 percent rate on top incomes, and a rise in the Medicare eligibility age.

I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that this is just a case of creeping Broderism, that it’s a VSP fantasy about how we’re going to resolve this in a bipartisan way. Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay.

First, raising the Medicare age is terrible policy. It would be terrible policy even if the Affordable Care Act were going to be there in full force for 65 and 66 year olds, because it would cost the public $2 for every dollar in federal funds saved. And in case you haven’t noticed, Republican governors are still fighting the ACA tooth and nail; if they block the Medicaid expansion, as some will, lower-income seniors will just be pitched into the abyss.

Second, why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing? And no, vague promises about closing loopholes won’t do it...So this looks crazy to me; it looks like a deal that makes no sense either substantively or in terms of the actual bargaining strength of the parties....If anyone in the White House is seriously thinking along these lines, please stop it right now.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/07/i-hope-this-isnt-true/

I'll go with "VSP fantasy."

Klein:

<...>

That’s not a policy I like much, but New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait accurately conveys the White House thinking here: They see it as having “weirdly disproportionate symbolic power,” as it’s not a huge (or smart) cut to Medicare benefits, and most of the pain will be blunted by the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans and self-styled deficit hawks see it as a big win. And Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who staunchly opposes raising the retirement age, has stopped well short of ruling it out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/07/the-fiscal-cliff-deal-comes-clearer-a-37-top-tax-rate-and-a-higher-medicare-eligibility-age/

Klein is basically selling Chait's idiotic idea:

<...>

What’s more, raising the Medicare retirement age would help strengthen the fight to preserve the Affordable Care Act. Republicans may be coming to grips with their lack of leverage over the Bush tax cuts, but their jihad against universal health insurance lives on. Having narrowly lost their wildly tendentious legal argument for striking down health care, they are devising newer and even more implausible ones. Republican governors continue to turn down federal funding to cover their poorest uninsured citizens and refuse to set up private insurance exchanges.

The political basis for the right’s opposition to universal health insurance has always been that the uninsured are politically disorganized and weak. But a side effect of raising the Medicare retirement age would be that a large cohort of 65- and 66-year-olds would suddenly find themselves needing the Affordable Care Act to buy their health insurance. Which is to say, Republicans attacking the Affordable Care Act would no longer be attacking the usual band of very poor or desperate people they can afford to ignore but a significant chunk of middle-class voters who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they will be able to afford health care. Strengthening the political coalition for universal coverage seems like a helpful side benefit — possibly even one conservatives come to regret, and liberals, to feel relief they accepted.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/12/go-ahead-raise-the-medicare-retirement-age.html

Fuck Republicans.

I mean, it's fairly idiotic to bargain based on what Republicans want. They have no fucking leverage.

The goal isn't to move Medicare recipients to the ACA, it's to strengthen health care reform to make it more in line with Medicare.

Krugman: It’s Health Care Costs, Stupid
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021922243

Greg Sargent has a better read on Boehner's position:

John Boehner nervously eyes the clock
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021941791

Boehner's has three choices:

1) Accept the President's proposal with "dividends to be taxed as ordinary income" and the "estate tax to be levied at 45 percent on inheritances over $3.5 million."

2) Pass the Senate bill, "which currently taxes inheritances over $5 million at 35 percent," but excludes Obama's dividend proposal.

3) Go over the cliff when "the estate tax is scheduled to rise to 55 percent beginning with inheritances exceeding $1 million."

In each case, the tax cuts for the rich end.

G.O.P. Balks at White House Plan on Fiscal Crisis
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/us/politics/fiscal-talks-in-congress-seem-to-reach-impasse.html