USA Today has a news article with a look at where the Super Committee's debate on Medicare cuts is headed:
Under the health care overhaul passed last year, the 2.9% Medicare tax was raised for individuals with income above $200,000 and couples above $250,000. Now the focus is on upper-income Medicare beneficiaries with income above $85,000, who already pay more for outpatient care and prescription drugs.
"I guess you go after rich people," says Robert Laszewski, a non-partisan health care consultant. "That's where you've got the most ability to hurt someone who can take the hurt."
Obama has proposed raising premiums for upper-income beneficiaries and gradually bringing more people into that group, so that eventually one in four seniors would pay more.
First it was "millionaires and billionaires," now it's anyone making more than $85,000 a year and on Medicare. Sometimes that slippery slope really is slippery.
