Budget deal adds funds to Pentagon, Social Security Disability, and Medicare

[MohRokTah]

Wow, the wailing and gnashing of teeth were all for naught yet again. SSDI and Medicare are INCREASED under the budget deal, though not as much as the Pentagon. This is how Boehner and Pelosi get nearly all the Democratic votes as well as many Republican votes to get this deal passed:

...

The legislation would suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 2017. The budget portion would increase the current "caps" on total agency spending by $50 billion in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017, offset by savings elsewhere in the budget. And it would permit about $16 billion to be added on top of that in 2016, classified as war funding, with a comparable boost in 2017.

It also would clean up expected problems in Social Security and Medicare by fixing a shortfall looming next year in Social Security payments to the disabled, as well as a large increase in Medicare premiums and deductibles for doctors' visits and other outpatient care.

...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/barack-obama-gop-democrats-reach-debt-deal

[leftofcool]

1. Thank goodness!

I was a bit worried about an increase in medicare payments.

[mmonk]

2. LOL

[Pisces]

3. Always the same crowd nashing their teeth, throwing Pres. Obama under the bus before they know

whats going on. Seems they keep getting run over by their own bus. Dumb coyotes don't know the drill by now.

[MohRokTah]

5. IT's nowhere near what I would have wanted.

Increases in premiums and deductibles will hurt, but additional funding helps and is the best we can hope for without massive economic harm from the idiots shutting it all down.

[Fred Sanders]

6. There seems to be a complete lack of understanding of how many times Obama has said there will

be no cuts to Medicare and SS benefits.....but the first headline out and the ObamaBashers gather like locusts.

Folks not understanding how The Sequester was about to do exactly that and which has now been avoided is also at the root of the Faux outrage.

[mmonk]

8. The price of a car we will raise but we haven't cut your salary logic.

[Pisces]

9. Same fools every time. As well as the people who continue to think he is a king or wizard and can

magically make Obamacare turn into single payer. It never ceases to amaze me that they still don't get how the government works.

[Fred Sanders]

4. If Obama is for it and the vast majority of Dems. in the House and Senate...what is the problem?

Seems like there is always a rush to be first to Instant Outrage....it is tiresome.

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. Good job Democrats! nt

[Fred Sanders]

10. The Revenge of Boehner....more to come?

The Tea Party and their Koch masters are the ones now gnashing their teeth and feeling outrage.....how can that be a bad thing?

[still_one]

11. Just trying to understand what this means. This is what CNN is saying:

Congressional leaders and the White House reached a major deal Monday to avoid a potential fiscal calamity, but not before many Republicans were left fuming that their party leadership had given too much away to their Democratic adversaries.

The two-year agreement, which would raise domestic and defense spending by $80 billion and lift the national borrowing limit until March 2017, could be voted on by the House as soon as Wednesday -- the same day the GOP is expected to nominate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, to replace retiring Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as House speaker. The deal prompted a tense session among House Republicans Monday night in the basement of the Capitol.

The final details were ironed out late into the night Monday, including cuts to the Social Security disability program and to Medicare. But the deal was the product of weeks of negotiations led by Boehner, who is furiously trying to take the divisive fiscal issues off the plate for Ryan before his successor takes office. If the deal passes, Ryan could have a clear path to do his job without the fiscal brinksmanship that damaged Boehner's speakership.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/26/politics/congress-budget-talks-hill/

[MohRokTah]

12. The cuts are calculated from fraud that will go away in SSD

They are requiring a more hoops to jump through for disability, the calculation is a savings from fraud.

In Medicare, there will be increases in premiums and deductibles even though funds are added. This becomes a savings.

[still_one]

13. Thanks for the explanation. If the deal has republicans fuming it has to have merit

[mmonk]

15. Presuming SSDI is fraud ridden which I doubt.

It takes many refusals already before acceptance if you make it through the labyrinth and discouragement. And why does it always go to social security and not corporate welfare anyway? Have an answer?

[LiberalArkie]

14. SSDI will be fixed by taking incoming money from Social Security and from doctors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/budget-deal-near_562ecf9ee4b00aa54a4af738

Snip

But the real pay-for would be felt on two major entitlement programs. The deal would extend the sequester's cuts to mandatory spending through 2025, which mostly involves a 2 percent cut in reimbursements to Medicare doctors. That reduction was scheduled to expire in 2021 under the 2011 Budget Control Act, which put sequestration into place. It was extended to 2023 under Murray-Ryan deal.

The new agreement also would prevent a 20 percent cut in benefits next year to the 11 million Americans enrolled in the Social Security Disability Insurance program. The cut would be avoided by diverting some of the incoming payroll tax money from Social Security's much bigger retirement insurance program for six years, something Republicans previously said they wouldn't do without cuts to benefits.

Hill sources said the disability changes would save roughly $4 billion to $5 billion over 10 years by requiring all states to have doctors review initial disability applications, which in some states are now checked by Social Security Administration officials and not medical professionals.

One source said the deal would also set up demonstration projects in which some people who receive disability benefits could earn money from working with less fear of triggering a review that can result in benefits being cut off. Instead, people participating in the projects could see their benefits gradually curtailed as their income rises -- an idea Ryan seemed to favor at a hearing earlier this year.

Snip