President Obama on Tuesday didn’t directly dismiss raising the Medicare eligibility age as part of a deal with Congressional Republicans to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, but instead argued that such a course wouldn’t be cost-effective.
“When you look at the evidence it’s not clear that it actually saves a lot of money,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ Barbara Walters aired Tuesday night. “But what I’ve said is let’s look at every avenue, because what is true is we need to strengthen Social Security, we need to strengthen Medicare for future generations, the current path is not sustainable because we’ve got an aging population and health care costs are shooting up so quickly.”
In a USA Today op-ed published earlier on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) railed against Republicans’ proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age.
“On paper, it appears to save money for the federal government,” Pelosi wrote. “In practice, it simply shifts the cost of health care to newly uninsured 65- and 66-year-olds, forcing them to pay more for their care out of their own pockets. It makes older Medicare beneficiaries pay higher premiums.”
