Joe Biden has been falsely attacking Republicans, claiming they want to cut Social Security and Medicare.
He’s repeated it constantly, including at his State of the Union address, when he got called out for that lie by Republicans including Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene who called him a liar from the floor.
Twitter has even called him out on his lies by posting a Community Note explaining what he said about Republicans wasn’t the case.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) February 7, 2023
But what makes his remarks truly disgusting and hypocritical is not only is he lying about the Republicans, he’s the one who is targeting Medicare by targeting Medicare Advantage.
As I wrote last month, 48 percent of Americans who are eligible for Medicare have Medicare Advantage, so what he’s doing can hurt a lot of Americans.
First, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that they would “claw back $4.7 billion from 2023 through 2032” in overpayments. That could then lead to “higher costs to plans” that “could lead some insurers to pull out of markets — and beneficiaries could face higher costs, fewer plan choices or reduced supplemental benefits under the Medicare Advantage program, per an Avalere analysis.”
In the second move — which is even more concerning — Medicare Advantage insurers would face an average 2.3 percent cut to baseline payments in 2024, Biden’s CMS said on Wednesday. That would be a net cut of more than $3 billion to the industry.
Now the governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, a member of the New Progressives, is very upset. According to El Nuevo Dia, he told the Biden administration that the preliminary plan to regulate 2024 Medicare Advantage reimbursements, which could lead to a reduction of $800 million annually in payments to these health plans on the island, would represent “the biggest cut in federal funds for health care in Puerto Rico’s history.” Pierluisi called on Secretary Xavier Becerra to stop the changes in Medicare Advantage plan reimbursements.
A bipartisan majority of the Senate has called upon the Biden administration not to attack Medicare Advantage, but to “continue to sustain and strengthen [it].”
But Biden is completely dismissing the people he would be hurting both in Puerto Rico and across the country. If that’s the kind of harm the Biden administration’s plans would do just in Puerto Rico, extrapolate out and just imagine how much they could hurt other Americans. But it’s the Republicans who are the bad guys? Biden has absolutely no shame.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member