Last week, the Biden administration announced its intention to cut Medicare Advantage for the second time in two years. Since a majority of seniors now get their health care through Medicare Advantage as opposed to traditional fee-for-service Medicare, this constitutes a cut to entitlements—the exact same thing Democrats routinely claim Republicans want to do. This cut comes despite 61 senators, including a bunch of imperiled Democrats but also even Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, signing a letter standing up for Medicare Advantage.

So, you might say this is sort of Biden taking a big dump on his party—or at least the part that isn’t pushing Medicare for All. That wing of the party, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Debbie Dingell, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, supports cuts to Medicare Advantage as a way to take away any alternative to traditional Medicare so they can more quickly move everyone into Medicare for All. From Warren's website:

My plan for health care reverses the Trump Administration's sabotage of our health care, allows everyone in America to choose a Medicare for All option for little or no cost, and cuts costs for families before moving us into full Medicare for All.

This is probably why when cuts were announced last year, Rep. Kevin Hern, head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, called them out as a stealth move to push the country to Medicare for All.

Notably, shortly before the cuts were announced, Dr. Brian Miller, MD, a member of the Medicare Payments Advisory Committee (MedPAC) hinted that MedPAC was being politicized and being used to set up a second round of cuts the Biden administration would push through:

It’s not lost on me that this discussion is coming immediately prior to the CMS Medicare Advantage rate notice, which we can expect to see in the coming days to weeks… The chair has noted he is in regular communication with CMS leadership. This gives the appearance — that MedPAC is an independent, thoughtful policy organization — is being hijacked for partisan political aims, while the organization’s analysis appears to be slanted to arrive at a foregone conclusion, in order to set up political cover for a massive MA rate cut. I note the many intellectual inconsistencies in this document, which I have spent untold hours reviewing, that result in intellectual somersaults.

Republicans have to make this a big issue in the 2024 election, because Democrats already are.

Every senior should know this. Trump did not touch social security during his presidency even though democrats said he would. Trump has stated he will not let the GOP touch it either.
Seniors should also know that Trump signed an EO to lower drug costs, capping insulin at $35 but… pic.twitter.com/7ObdHOF70f

— democrat no more (@WalkFromDems) February 7, 2024

Medicare Advantage allows private insurers to exploit Medicare's sterling reputation in order to profit from sub-par care for seniors. MAGA Republicans want to make it the new standard. We need to SAVE Medicare, not destroy it. https://t.co/FSXgdz8noU

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) February 8, 2024

Of course, it's the Democrats who are cutting this entitlement (which really doesn't give us heartburn), but they're doing so to drive people towards a policy that was sufficiently unpopular that it didn’t even persuade Democratic primary voters in 2020. We usually ignore these developments since we agree with the gist of what's happening, but fail to see further down the field to what the radical Democrats' end goal is. They're already communicating this, probably because it'll take months for these talking points to make their way into Joe's pre-programmed rants, but to ignore this clear messaging win for Republicans and turn it into a liability would be a travesty.