The Democrats’ Medicare Problem

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleanor_black/5133623922/">eleanor ryan</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Democrats have had a field day attacking Republicans for supporting Paul Ryan’s drastic plan to voucherize Medicare. Now Republicans are starting to push back—and their counterattacks could highlight some of the Democrats’ own vulnerabilities on the popular entitlement program for seniors. 

Republicans have already launched an ad against Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Ca.), a Democrat representing a Northern California swing district, Politico reports. In the television ad, Republicans claim that “McNerney and President Obama’s Medicare plan empowers bureaucrats to interfere with doctors, risking seniors’ access to treatment. Now, Obama’s budget plan lets Medicare go bankrupt: That’d mean big cuts to benefits. Tell McNerney to stop bankrupting Medicare.”

The first sentence of the ad refers to a new Medicare payment advisory panel created by Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The ACA empowers an independent, Senate-approved group of experts to reduce Medicare costs—so long as their actions don’t ration care, increase premiums, or decrease coverage. In terms of keeping wasteful spending and costs down, it’s one of the most important pieces of the federal reform—and one of the most widely misunderstood, reviled by the GOP as the new “death panel.” House Democrats were wary of supporting the panel to begin with, and concerned about its ability to bypass legislators. (Congress can still vote to override the panel’s decisions, but the panel doesn’t need advance approval to act.) Now a small but growing number of Dems have signed on to a GOP effort to scrap the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

So in response to the message that Republicans would end up placing seniors at the mercy of rapacious, private-hungry private insurers, the GOP will contend that faceless, unelected bureaucrats will be trimming Medicare instead. Democrats, of course, could argue that they’re just trying to set fairer ground rules for the health-care market, which has victimized consumers through sky-high costs and unjust practices. But some Dems’ willingness to sign on to the bill that would repeal IPAB shows that they may not be entirely confident in that argument.

To be sure, Obama has not only vowed to protect IPAB but also promised to strengthen its authority. Politically speaking, it could be an uphill battle for Democrats to explain their own reform plan for Medicare—and, as I predicted last month, Republicans will do everything they can to exploit that vulnerability. 

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate