WASHINGTON ― Republicans are so strapped for budget savings to offset their multi-trillion dollar tax cuts they’re looking in a forbidden and politically explosive place: Medicare.
The $5 trillion tax-and-spending package that the House passed includes cuts of nearly $900 billion to Medicaid, which serves over 70 million low-income Americans. Now, some Senate Republicans are pushing to broaden spending reductions by looking for supposed inefficiencies in the Medicare program that serves America’s seniors.
“The president indicated waste, fraud and abuse is a permissible target,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told HuffPost after a meeting with President Donald Trump on Wednesday. “Part of the issue has to do with abuse in Medicare Advantage.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Republicans were looking at “upcoding,” or the practice of health care providers using inaccurate diagnosis codes in order to wring more money from Medicare Advantage, the Medicare program run by private insurers. Grassley said the topic had come up at Monday meetings, but he wasn’t sure if the president was on board.
Other Republicans stressed the idea of major changes to Medicare isn’t a serious one.
