medicare

'Electoral suicide': Swing state Senate Republican buried for suggesting Medicare cuts

Senate Republicans are under increasing pressure to identify additional spending cuts to finance their ambitious "Big Beautiful Bill." One potential area of focus is Medicare, according to The Hill.

Proponents of this suggestion are reportedly arguing that efficiency improvements could yield substantial savings.

Sen.Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, emphasized Thursday the potential for cost reductions within Medicare, drawing parallels to previous Medicaid reforms. "I think the same logic that you use to find to implement efficiencies in Medicaid…you can use at Medicare," Tillis reportedly stated.

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"These are billions and billions and billions of dollars spent every year. If we get 10, 15% efficiency out of that, that's a big number," he added.

The lawmaker's statement, issued a day after the Senate Finance panel's meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, has faced criticism on social media.

Reacting to Tillis' remarks, former Barack Obama advisor Jon Favreau said in a post on the social platform X: "I guess kicking 15 million Americans off their health insurance isn’t enough, now they want to go after Medicare too."

Some commentators pointed out that Tillis is up for reelection next year, and his stance could influence his chances of winning. The North Carolina Republican launched his reelection campaign in March.

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"Vulnerable GOP Senator proposes cutting Medicare," wrote another Obama advisor, Dan Pfeiffer.

Connecticut State Comptroller Sean Scanlon, while sharing the GOP lawmaker's comments, wrote: "They said they wouldn’t cut Medicaid. They are. They said they wouldn’t cut Medicare."

"Tillis talking about Medicare cuts like this is electoral suicide. What the hell is he doing?!" wrote Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist.

"Cut Medicare I dare them. And I'll let my parents know and they'll never vote R ever again," wrote a user.

READ MORE: Revealed: The 'Big Beautiful Bill' contains an ugly favor for one of Florida’s top industries

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'Revenue-generating diagnoses': DOJ investigates UnitedHealth Group for fraud

The Justice Department is reportedly investigating UnitedHealth Group for fraud related to upcoding — encouraging doctors to diagnose patients with conditions they do not have for profit. The group has been the target of anger regarding the health insurance industry following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December.

“The new civil fraud investigation is examining the company’s practices for recording diagnoses that trigger extra payments to its Medicare Advantage plans, including at physician groups the insurance giant owns,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

UnitedHealth shares dropped by 12 percent following the Journal’s report, CNBC reported. They are also facing an antitrust investigation by the DOJ.

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A series of investigations by the Journal found that “Medicare paid UnitedHealth billions of dollars for questionable diagnoses.”

Insurers get a payment from the federal government for patients on a Medicare Advantage plan. The payments increase for certain diagnoses, “creating an incentive to diagnose more diseases,” write the Journal’s Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews.

Thompson’s killing elicited an outpour of emotion about the health insurance industry, with patients sharing their stories on social media. The person charged with killing him, Luigi Mangione, has since gained a fawning cult following.

“Doctors said UnitedHealth, based in the Minneapolis area, trained them to document revenue-generating diagnoses, including some they felt were obscure or irrelevant. The company also used software to suggest conditions and paid bonuses for considering the suggestions, among other tactics, according to the doctors,” Weaver and Mathews write.

READ MORE: 'Unnecessary care': Leaked video shows UnitedHealth chief defending company’s denials

Three doctors who were contacted by the DOJ following the Journal’s investigations said “they were questioned about specific diagnoses UnitedHealth promoted for employees to use with patients, incentive arrangements and pressure to add the diagnoses. At least two provided documents, including a contract with a UnitedHealth unit, to the Justice Department,” according to the report.

For example, the company often suggested an obscure condition called secondary hyperaldosteronism — without lab tests. The condition, the Journal found, was “rarely diagnosed by Medicare doctors not working for UnitedHealth.”

The investigators were looking for abuse, according to nurse practitioner Valerie O’Meara, who was interviewed by DOJ attorneys in January.

Mangione is set to appear in New York state court Friday. He is facing murder and terror charges.

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Musk hints at cutting $500 billion from 'entitlements' like Social Security and Medicare

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a statement from Social Security Works.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — whose net worth is just shy of $400 billion — just dropped a hint that he may be eyeing significant cuts to earned benefits programs like Social Security and Medicare in the future.

During his Thursday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Musk was asked about his "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) project, and about the scope of spending cuts he aimed to implement. The South African centibillionaire asserted to NewsMax anchor Rob Schmitt — who interviewed him on stage — that "waste" was "pretty much everywhere."

"People ask how can you find waste in D.C., it's like being in a room and the wall, the roof and the floors are all targets," he said. "You can shoot in any direction. You can't miss."

READ MORE: 'Time to think of Plan B': Musk ripped after forcing out Social Security chief

Schmitt then asked Musk specifically about his plans for the Social Security Administration, which DOGE representatives have already reportedly accessed. Schmitt referenced "$72 billion in waste in seven years," while Musk seemingly alluded to hundreds of billions of dollars in supposedly wasteful spending.

"I think that the rough estimate from the Government Accountability Office is over $500 billion a year. $500 billion. With a B. Per year," Musk said.

"On Social Security?" Schmitt asked.

"On all entitlements. All entitlements, yeah," Musk responded, using a catch-all term to describe mandatory spending like Medicare and veterans' benefits.

READ MORE: Top Treasury official quits as Musk allies seek to control Social Security, Medicare payments

Musk insisted during the interview that millions of dead Americans are still getting Social Security payments, including Americans who are allegedly hundreds of years old. ABC 7 New York debunked that claim, and pointed out that Musk was misreading Social Security Administration data. One of the agency's databases includes every American who has ever been issued a Social Security number, and no date of death has been listed for many of those Americans as they died before electronic records were established.

ABC 7 reported that of the roughly 67 million Americans currently receiving Social Security benefits, only 0.1% of them are over 100 years old. And while there are occasional fraudulent payments, that accounts for less than 1% of total spending and is usually in the form of overpayments to living beneficiaries.

"When Donald Trump ran for president, he blanketed swing states in flyers pledging to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Now, Trump has empowered Elon Musk to slash $500 billion a year from these vital benefits," Social Security Works communications director Linda Benesch told AlterNet. "But Congress has the power to stop him. We urge everyone to call their members of Congress and demand that they pledge one penny in cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid."

According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government had approximately $3.8 trillion in mandatory spending obligations in Fiscal Year 2023, which included $1.3 trillion for Social Security and $839 billion for Medicare. Beneficiaries of those programs have their eligibility and benefit formulas set by federal statute, meaning it would take an act of Congress to change it.

READ MORE: 'Allow some of this to be privatized': GOP gov admits goal of DOGE is to gut Social Security

Watch the segment of Musk's comments below, or by clicking this link.


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Top Treasury official quits as Musk allies seek to control Social Security, Medicare payments

Allies of billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are reportedly attempting to gain control of the U.S. Treasury's payment systems that handle roughly $6 trillion in payments every year. Now, the top career official at the Treasury Department is resigning.

That's according to a Friday article in the Washington Post, which reported that surrogates of Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," or "DOGE" (which is not yet an official government agency authorized by Congress) are now aiming to control the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). The BFS oversees payment systems that make trillions of dollars in payments annually to households and businesses, as well as to Americans receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits.

David A. Lebryk, who President Donald Trump appointed as acting Treasury secretary after taking office, suddenly retired following an apparent "dispute" with Musk's associates. After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was confirmed by the U.S. Senate earlier this week, Lebryk stepped out of the acting secretary role, though he still remained at the Treasury Department until Friday.

READ MORE: 'Musk lackeys' have seized control of key federal office: report

Lebryk's retirement announcement came after decades of service in the Treasury Department under presidents of both parties and 11 different Treasury secretaries. DOGE officials have reportedly been trying to control the BFS' payment systems since after Trump's election victory, and doubled down on those requests after Trump's inauguration. Lebryk's departure was described as a "shock" to Treasury Department employees, who said he had a "sterling" reputation at the agency.

“Please know that your work makes a difference and is so very important to the country. It has been an honor to work alongside you," Lebryk wrote in an email to colleagues. “Our work may be unknown to most of the public, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exceptionally important.”

BFS' payment systems made more than 1.3 billion payments totaling roughly $5.4 trillion in fiscal year 2023 alone, according to the Post, with every payment made on time. Mark Mazur, who was a senior Treasury Department official under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said attempts to seize control of the BFS for political purposes is unprecedented.

“This is a mechanical job — they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,” Mazur told the Post. “It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda... You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.”

READ MORE: 'Kicked him to the curb': How Elon musk forced Vivek Ramaswamy out of DOGE

Click here to read the Post's report in full (subscription required).


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Report: House GOP eyes $2.5 trillion in spending cuts — Social Security, Medicare at risk

House Republicans on Friday presented a proposal during a closed-door meeting to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s directive to raise the debt ceiling. The plan proposes increasing the limit on debt by $1.5 trillion, followed by cutting “net mandatory spending” by $2.5 trillion, according to a report from Punchbowl News co-founder Joe Sherman.

Mandatory spending consists largely of programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which the government by law is required to fund. These programs are often referred to as “entitlements.” It also includes spending on interest on the national debt, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps feed over 40 million participants — including families — each month.

Sherman reported Friday afternoon, amid the impending government shutdown crisis, that “IN THE GOP MEETING — GOP leadership has a slide up that has an ‘agreement’ on the debt limit.”

“The ‘agreement’ says that House Republicans will raise the debt limit by $1.5T in the ‘first reconciliation package’ alongside a promise to CUT $2.5T in ‘net mandatory spending in the reconciliation process.'”

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Axios’ Juliegrace Brufke shared what appears to be a photograph of that slide:

A recent, somewhat cryptic remark by President-elect Donald Trump seems to echo Sherman’s and Brufke’s reporting, and that of others: “The United States will cut Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in spending next year through Reconciliation!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website, early Thursday evening.

Adding more details, and referencing “reconciliation,” The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports Friday afternoon: “The spending cuts-for-debt-limit-increase agreement being presented to GOP members includes a plan to cut mandatory spending. Mandatory spending includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits, and more.”

“The agreement being eyed would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in net cuts to mandatory spending, done through a reconciliation package, two sources confirmed to The Hill,” Brooks added. “It is not clear which programs would be cut. The reconciliation process is a special procedure that gets around the Senate filibuster, allowing Republicans who will have trifecta control of government to push through their priorities without needing Democratic support.”

Brooks also explained that “Republicans have long been planning to use this process to advance an ambitious legislative agenda that includes extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and addressing border security. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, however, notes that while reconciliation can be used to address most mandatory spending program, the Budget Act prohibits using it to change Social Security.”

The executive editor of The American Prospect, David Dayen, wrote: “They’re coming for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”

“Mandatory spending cuts is Republican swamp speak for gutting your hard-earned Medicare,” commented U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).

READ MORE: ‘Sick’: Dems Slam Johnson’s Refusal to Negotiate as Government Hurls Toward Shutdown

“Republicans are planning to rob you of your retirement & health care,” observed U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

What could this mean?

Bobby Kogan, Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy for The Center for American Progress writes that Republicans “have been open about wanting to gut Medicaid and SNAP. $2.5 trillion in cuts could mean: -cutting Medicaid 32% -cutting Medicaid & SNAP 28% -entirely eliminating SNAP, TANF, SSI, and the Child Care entitlement to states.”

TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, helps “families with children experiencing low-income achieve economic security and stability.”

SSI, also known as Supplemental Security Income, helps “people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.”

“If the cut fell entirely on Medicaid,” Kogan added, “it would mean on average about 32 million people were kicked off of Medicaid (depending on how they structured the cuts).”

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) remarked, “House Republicans just proposed slashing Medicare and Medicaid. I’ll stay in Washington until Hell freezes over to stop them.”

READ MORE: Why Aren’t More Democrats Speaking Out Against RFK Jr.’s HHS Nomination?

Trump during the campaign promised to cut “entitlements” and promised to never cut Social Security or Medicare.

Watch the videos below or at this link.


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'Conflicts of interest': Senators expose Dr. Oz’s plan to profit from privatizing Medicare

Dr. Mehmet Oz — who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) — may have plans to personally reap millions of dollars from privatizing Medicare, according to a group of senators.

NBC News reported Tuesday that several Senate Democrats recently published a letter to Dr. Oz asking him to clarify his past position on advocating for Medicare plans to be phased out in favor of Medicare Advantage plans, in which private health insurance companies replace the federal government in administering health insurance to the elderly. If Oz is confirmed to lead CMMS, he would have vast influence over both health insurance for both low-income Americans and retirees as well as vast oversight over prescription drug prices.

In a 2020 Forbes op-ed co-authored by the former CEO of health insurance giant Kaiser Permanente, Oz called for employer-provided health insurance to be eliminated and for all Americans to be put in "Medicare Advantage for All" plans funded by a 20% payroll tax evenly split between employers and employees. In their letter, senators pointed out that Dr. Oz would personally profit if Medicare was privatized due to his investment portfolio.

READ MORE: Dr. Oz holds stake in company funded by agency Trump asked him to lead: reports

"Your advocacy for eliminating the Traditional Medicare program and replacing it with Medicare Advantage also raises questions about your own financial conflicts of interest," read the letter signed by six Senate Democrats. "In your financial disclosures from your 2022 Senate run, you reported owning over $550,000 of stock in UnitedHealth, the largest private insurer in Medicare Advantage and largest employer of physicians in the nation."

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both sit on the Senate Finance Committee, where Dr. Oz will appear for his confirmation hearing next month. They wrote that Dr. Oz owes it to Americans to explain his "advocacy for the elimination of Traditional Medicare," pointing out his "deep financial ties to private health insurers."

"Indeed, private insurers that run the Medicare Advantage program drastically overcharge for care," they added.

Senators reminded. Dr. Oz that UnitedHealth is "currently under a sprawling antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice — including for its role in aggressively upcoding Medicare Advantage enrollees to secure higher payments from CMS — and has been sued on multiple occasions for Medicare fraud." They further noted that "UnitedHealth’s revenue from Medicare Advantage would roughly double to $274 billion annually" if his plan to privatize Medicare came to fruition.

READ MORE: Dr. Oz would be 'pitchman for dubious medical cures' as Center for Medicare head: report

Click here to read NBC's report in full.

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GOP already 'chomping at the bit' to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare: analysis

Republicans are already revealing their eagerness to cut earned benefits for millions of Americans, if one House Republican is to be believed.

In a recent interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.) said that he aims to convince his fellow lawmakers that "hard decisions" need to be made about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid if his party is to succeed in its goal of making sweeping budget cuts.

"75 percent of the budget is nondiscretionary," McCormick said, referencing the three programs that provide income and health insurance to retirees, low-income Americans and the disabled. "There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on."

READ MORE: Lawmaker vows 'strong resistance' if Musk agency recommends Social Security or Medicare cuts

New Republic writer Hafiz Rashid highlighted McCormick's interview to make the point that Republicans are "chomping at the bit at some of their favorite targets" in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory. And he noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also mentioned the possibility of making cuts to those three programs in order to fatten the Pentagon budget, along with "the infamous conservative manifesto Project 2025."

"While McCormick pledges to talk to the Democrats about such cuts, the GOP is unlikely to get much traction with the opposing party, especially since Republicans will have a razor-thin majority in the House where a single vote or two could tank their legislative agenda.," Rashid wrote. "Even if the GOP manages to win over a couple of Democrats, any plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid will get pushback from powerful organizations such as the AARP. Older voters who rely on the programs also make up the base of the Republican Party, and politicians from both parties should be wary of provoking them."

Notably, McCormick didn't mention one of his party's more costly goals: Extending Trump's 2017 tax cut package that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the rich. Politico estimated that an extension would require roughly $4.6 trillion over 10 years, which even some Republicans were worried about.

Watch the video of McCormick's comments below, or by clicking this link.

READ MORE: 'Biggest challenge': Even Republicans are nervous about Trump's new $4.6 trillion tax cut

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