Dayton Daily News...
Medicare reforms, higher taxes on rich in Obama debt reduction plan
President’s proposal won’t help the economy or job growth, GOP says.
By Jack Torry 

WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama annoyed Republicans Monday by calling for higher taxes on upper-income Americans, he opened the door for revising Medicare as part of his plan to cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion in the next decade. 

Obama’s plan calls for

$1.5 trillion during the next decade in higher taxes — largely on families making more than $250,000 a year — but would also require wealthier Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums for physician and prescription drugs services. 

Although the higher premiums would not go into effect until 2017 and would only raise $20 billion during the next decade, it was an acknowledgement by the White House that the expensive health program covering seniors needs major reforms. 

With his plan, Obama resisted a call last week by House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester, to propose sweeping changes in Social Security. White House budget chief Jack Lew told reporters

that the president was backing

“serious changes’’ in federal health programs. 

“I think that’s a very significant political move for a Democratic

president,’’ said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan Washington organization that pushes for lower deficits. “On the negative side, he took Social Security off the table. And that sends a bad signal because we have to deal with the program.’’ 

Michael Linden, director of tax and budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., said Obama is “saying we’re going to have to do some things to reduce costs in Medicare and this is one way to do it.’’ 

The possibility of higher premiums for some Medicare beneficiaries prompted sharp criticism from Nancy LeaMond, executive vice president of AARP, who said “we remain concerned about proposals that could impose arbitrary, harmful cuts to the Medicare program or shift additional
costs onto Medicare beneficiaries. We urge the Administration and Congress to reject any health care proposals that would cut seniors’ benefits, raise out-of- pocket costs, and threaten long-term care services for millions of older Americans and persons with disabilities,’’ she said. 

Obama’s plan is designed to press a 12-member nonpartisan committee of lawmakers from the House and Senate — including Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio — to consider raising tax revenue as part of their effort to slash the federal budget by $1.5 trillion during the next decade. 

The committee has until Nov. 23 to produce a plan, which then must pass the House and Senate. If Congress and the White House fail to agree on a deficit-reduction package, then starting in January of 2013 the law requires automatic budget cuts of $1.2 trillion during a 10-year period. 

In a clear sign that the president intends to sharpen his message in a way to please Democrats, he vowed that he would “veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share. We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable.’’ 

For the most part, Republicans focused on Obama’s call for higher taxes. Boehner, who last week said he would oppose a tax increase by the committee, said that “pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership.’’ Boehner said the joint committee “is engaged in serious work to tackle a serious problem: The debt crisis that is making it harder to get our economy growing and create more American jobs. Unfortunately, the president has not made a serious contribution to its work today.’’ 

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said that “while not perfect, the president’s plan would reduce the deficit by cutting wasteful tax breaks to big oil companies and hedge fund managers and asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.’’

Obama, like Boehner last week, also called for the committee to consider a major overhaul of the tax code “to make it simpler, make it fairer, and make America more competitive.” 

However, Obama said any reform will have to raise revenue to help close the deficit, including what he said should be a higher, unspecified tax on millionaires. 

“This is not class warfare,’’ Obama said. “It’s math.’’ The president said that “either we ask the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share in taxes, or we’re going to have to ask seniors to pay more for Medicare. We can’t afford to do both.’’ 

Should the committee or Congress fail to agree on a tax reform, then Obama said the 2001 and 2003 tax reductions for families making more than $250,000 a year should expire on schedule at the end of next year. 

Read it at the Dayton Daily News