When the GOP took back the House in 2022, it was understood that passing legislation would require a higher degree of compromise as Democrats held on to the Senate.
Both parties have now started to question what bills can pass through Congress relatively unscathed, and proposals to change Medicare are seemingly not among those measures.
The federal program is fairly popular and politicians will likely want to pull back on calling for changes to it heading into the 2024 election cycle.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) last week dropped Medicare, Social Security and the U.S. Navy from his 12-point Rescue America plan, which calls for all federal legislation to sunset every five years. Scott said his plan was “never intended” to apply to the areas he exempted.
The suggestion to cut Medicare and Social Security was one of President Biden’s saltiest digs at Republicans during his State of the Union address, drawing boos from GOP lawmakers in the crowd. Biden took that as a tacit acknowledgement those programs are off the table.
Lawmakers on the other end of the spectrum, however, seem just as wary of passing potential changes to Medicare.
In an interview with NPR, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said outright that his desire for a Medicare-for-all system “ain’t going to happen.”
“No Republicans support it. Half the Democrats won’t support it,” Sanders told the outlet.
While far-reaching changes to Medicare seem all but unfeasible now, updates to the federal health insurance provider will need to be made in the coming years if it is to overcome rising costs.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report last week that projected Medicare and Social Security will become insolvent in the next 10 years. As lawmakers drop their more ambitious goals for Medicare, a plan to actually maintain it seems to be one area ripe for bipartisanship.
