WASHINGTON – President Biden, in a budget set to be released on Thursday, will propose raising taxes on Americans earning more than $400,000 as part of a string of efforts to stretch their solvency. Medicare payments by a quarter of a century.
The president would also propose expanding that tax, which helps fund health care programs, to cover more income, including some of the income of business owners that are not currently taxable. , White House officials said in a fact sheet released Tuesday morning. Mr. Biden will also seek to expand a measure, passed last year entirely by Democratic votes, that would allow Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies, which is expected will save the government money.
Biden’s plan is unlikely to become law. They will almost certainly be rejected by the Republicans, who took control of the House of Representatives last fall, and who are outright opposed to the tax increases.
But in focusing on Medicare in the budget and pre-release, Mr. Biden is seeking to draw sharp contrasts with Republicans and see himself as a defender of cherished retirement plans – both for the campaign and for the campaign. His likely reelection campaign and for an impending congressional battle over raising the nation’s borrowing limit focus on taxes, spending and debt.
“The budget I’ll be releasing this week will make the Medicare trust viable beyond 2050 without cutting a dime in benefits,” Biden wrote. in an opinion for The New York Times on Tuesday morning. “In fact, we can get better value, ensuring Americans get better care than they pay for Medicare.”
Healthcare in the United States
For the first time this year, Medicare will begin regulating prescription drug prices, using new powers Congress gave it in the Inflation Reduction Act, the tax, health and climate legislation that Mr. late last summer. The president’s budget highlights the significant savings the reform is expected to generate over time.
The law allows Medicare to adjust the prices paid for some expensive drugs that have been on the market for several years. It also limits the amount all drug manufacturers can raise the price of their drugs each year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, those reforms would save Medicare about $160 billion over a decade.
Changes in prescription drug prices come with changes to Medicare drug benefits, which will also reduce expensive drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries, by limiting the total amount they can pay. are required to pay for one year for all of their drugs and by limiting the insulin co-payment to $35 a month.
Mr. Biden will propose to expand the drug negotiations by allowing the government to negotiate on more drugs. The White House estimates those changes and other adjustments to the drug negotiation provision will save the government an additional $200 billion over 10 years, money it seeks to go to the Medicare trust fund. Medicare trustee hospital trust fund estimate will default by 2028 without congressional action.
Republicans are unlikely to come along. They tried to overturn the entire Inflation Reduction Act, including the drug negotiations, which some Republicans say would stifle innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. They have also sought to roll back Mr Biden’s tax increase on corporations and high earners.
Mr. Biden’s Medicare program includes another boost, Medicare-linked tax increase for those earning over $400,000 annually to 5 percent from 3.8 percent and expand that taxable income.
But the president has not proposed other major new policies to reduce Medicare spending on health care in the coming years. His proposal, like his previous budget, omits series of policies to reduce waste has been included in the budgets released by President Obama and President Trump.
