In his latest move to differentiate himself from House Republicans on entitlement programs, President Joe Biden is making a pretty big promise.
He is vowing to shore up the shaky finances of Medicare’s trust fund, extending its solvency to the middle of the century instead of the expected depletion date of 2028.
“I will not cut a single Social Security or Medicare benefit. In fact, I’m going to extend the Medicare trust fund for at least two decades,” Biden said Thursday in a speech in Florida, echoing similar comments from his State of the Union address earlier in the week.
But just how he will accomplish this objective – as well as one to strengthen Social Security – remains to be seen.
Other than repeating his common refrain of making the wealthy and big corporations pay more, he has yet to outline a vision for securing the entitlement programs. It’s a goal that has eluded many presidents and lawmakers before him, and the divided Congress will make it that much more difficult to accomplish.
Asked for more information, the White House said, “We will provide more details on March 9, when the president releases his budget, backed up by full, transparent accounting.”
Pressed about his plan, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that she’s “just not going to get ahead of what the president is going to lay out on his budget.”
Biden is touting many of the financial benefits for Medicare enrollees in the Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed last summer. The law aims to reduce seniors’ drug costs and is expected to produce savings for the federal government. But it will not help Medicare’s troubled hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part A, which pays for services such as inpatient hospital care.
The trust fund will only be able to pay…
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