Analysis: Medicare, liberals and the lesser of two evils

Writing for Kaiser Health News, Jonathan Cohn asks and answer the following question: "Why does the debt ceiling deal give liberals so much heartburn? Many reasons, obviously. But a big one is the possibility that it will trigger automatic cuts to Medicare, the jewel of the Great Society and the program on which virtually every senior citizen depends for health insurance. ... The fear is that those cuts would leave the elderly without adequate financial protection or access to medical care. It's a rational fear but, perhaps, not a necessary one. Talk to policy analysts, industry lobbyists, or advocates for the elderly, and you'll detect an emerging, if tentative, consensus: The impact of automatic cuts would be relatively modest and, most likely, less severe than whatever that super committee would devise as an alternative" (Cohn, 8/15). Read the analysis.

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.