Biden's proposal to save Medicare targets high-income earners
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The Biden Administration's plan is to raise a tax on Americans making big as part of a series of efforts to extend the solvency of Medicare by a quarter century.
The White House announced Tuesday that President Joe Biden will seek to raise the Medicare tax for high-income earners and push for more drug price negotiations to help keep the federal health insurance program solvent until at least 2025 as part of its budget proposal.
“Slightly increasing the Medicare tax rate on income over $400,000. The budget proposes to increase the Medicare tax rate on earned and unearned income above $400,000 from 3.8% to 5% ,” the White House said.
The Administration believes that by asking top income earners to contribute “modestly” more they will be able to keep the Medicare program strong for decades to come “high income earners are supposed to pay a 3.8% Medicare tax on all their income, but some highly paid professionals and other wealthy businessmen have managed to shield part of their income from tax by claiming it is neither earned income nor investment income.
Although Biden's proposal is unlikely to be accepted in Congress because the Republicans have come out against a tax increase, it is also unlikely that the president would be showing the American people that he remains firm in continuing to shelter the most needy.
This Tuesday the president wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times in which he assured that “the budget I am publishing this week will make the Medicare trust fund solvent beyond 2050 without cutting a penny in benefits. In fact, we can get better value by making sure Americans get better care for the money they pay for Medicare.”
For a few weeks Biden has been trying to link the Republicans to the idea of ​​cutting funding for Medicare as part of the negotiations on the increase in the debt limit of $31.4 trillion dollars in the United States, in addition, he has promised to Offer your vision for funding Medicare.
“The Budget credits the savings from these additional prescription drug reforms, amounting to $200 billion over 10 years, to the HI Trust Fund. Reduction of costs for the beneficiaries”, indicated the White House