WASHINGTON -- White House Press Secretary Jay Carney emphatically ruled out including any provision raising the eligibility age of Medicare as part of a deal to eliminate or replace the impending sequestration cuts.
"Is the president open to raising the eligibility age for Medicare?" Carney was asked during Monday's daily briefing."No," he responded.That the White House is ruling out such a change to Medicare is welcome news for Democrats, who have argued that increasing the eligibility age from 65 would save an insufficient amount of money and should not be considered in deficit reduction talks.President Barack Obama had put the proposal on the table during debt ceiling negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in July 2011. He retracted the offer when the two tried to hammer out a deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" in December 2012.
i agree there needs to be some can of change in the present structure but it does not have to come to disabling the elderly and disabled and working poor, sounds like an oxymoron, working poor but thru right wing rigging their money goes up and working wages go down, this is disproportionate, unfair and a plan, to keep us just on the edge but never quite able to knock on that club door requesting membership.
But while Democrats may rejoice over this new development, they will likely be disheartened by another. Carney said on Monday that the president would be open to reducing Social Security's benefit structure as part of a "big deal" to avert sequestration. That proposal, known as chained CPI, would alter the annual adjustment in how benefits are paid to Social Security recipients by using a less generous baseline of inflation.
but all you hear from the right wing "the Pres. needs to come to the table and talk to them", he needs to lead why so they can keep up the grade school playground antics of tag? they say you can lead an elephant to water but if you step back and let them negotiate you either step in dung or it fall on your face, while they laugh like kids that just dropped a water balloon, who are the grown ups here, and who is stuck in a loop of no we choose to obstruct?
