Obama’s Medicare Abdication — and Constitutional Hypocrisy
Karl Rove has a column in the Wall Street Journal this morning talking about President Obama’s failure to submit Medicare reform legislation under the funding “trigger” included in 2003’s Medicare Modernization Act. Last month, the trustees issued their fifth straight Medicare funding warning showing that the Medicare program is taking a disproportionate share of its funding from general revenues, thus crowding out programs like defense and education. While in theory this development should prompt the President to follow his statutory requirement to submit legislation remedying this funding shortfall, the White House has steadfastly refused to do so – relying instead on a signing statement to ignore the need for Medicare reform (and also breaking the President’s campaign promises in the process).
Mr. Rove’s column rightly points out that the President views statutes as a “legal cafeteria” from which he can pick and choose the requirements with which he deign comply. But there’s also another point at issue, and that’s this: The President’s deficit reduction “plan” calls for a deficit “fail-safe” requiring additional action if the budget situation does not improve. But Medicare ALREADY has such a “fail-safe,” and the President has scrupulously ignored it. If the President is so interested in budgetary “fail-safes” as a way to reduce the federal deficit, why doesn’t he abide by the Medicare “fail-safe” that’s already in law – a “fail-safe” he has completely ignored?
Medicare is currently running cash flow deficits in the tens of billions of dollars, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, its Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent in nine short years. The Medicare trustees report notes that the program needs major fiscal reform NOW – not after the President’s re-election campaign, when the White House’s deficit reduction plan would finally take effect. Instead the White House continues to duck the tough questions regarding Medicare reform.
After promising during his presidential campaign that he would NOT use presidential signing statements to “get [his] way,” President Obama is now relying on a signing statement to avoid putting forward concrete proposals for Medicare reform – effectively attempting to get his way by avoiding the big issues of entitlement reform 18 months before his re-election bid. But, with federal deficits running at record highs, some may wonder whether ducking on the biggest issue of our generation – massive and unsustainable federal debts sparked largely by uncontrolled entitlements – represents the kind of change the American people can believe in.