Paul Ryan is back on the warpath looking to get your Social Security and Medicare. But a new score from the CBO shows that raising the Medicare eligibility age would save so little money as to make it nearly meaningless.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday dramatically lowered its estimate of the amount of budget savings to be gained from raising the Medicare eligibility age.
The CBO now says that raising the Medicare age slowly to 67 from 65 would yield just $19 billion over 10 years. In 2012, the CBO had estimated the move would yield $113 billion in the first 10 years.
The CBO estimate could reduce any incentive lawmakers, especially Democrats, have to take the politically treacherous step of raising the Medicare age.
The new score is predicated on 65 and 66 year olds being healthier, and having better access to employer coverage.
The Republicans like to pretend they care about spending money and pose as fiscal conservatives but they had no problem literally throwing away $24 Billion in the recent government shutdown.
If the goal of the government shutdown was to help taxpayers by curbing government spending and boosting the economy, supporters of the idea got it all wrong.
As the dust settles, economists are adding up the collateral damage. The results aren’t pretty:
The shutdown also forced non-government business losses, temporary layoffs and other interruptions in business spending. The full extent of the damage won’t be known for some time. Economists at Standard & Poor’s estimate the total cost at about $24 billion, or a 0.6 percent GDP haircut. Others guess it's about half that. Either way, it's a heavy price to pay.
At the new rate it would take nearly a decade and a half of Medicare cuts to make up what Republicans threw away in the shutdown lasting a brief two weeks. And here is an astonishing
compilation of nine other things that would have cost less than the useless shutdown. We already knew the Republicans are hypocrites on all fronts, this just adds to the proof. So Paul Ryan can just stop his 'grand' standing.