Budget Deal Landmines

On Thursday, the Senate passed a bill to increase the federal budget and lift the debt ceiling for the next two years. The Trump administration provided a list of $574 billion in savings options from the president’s 2020 budget to offset some or all of the proposed deal’s domestic and defense spending increases over the next two years. And whenever big numbers in government spending are debated, Medicare is always on the table. Early reports said that a big chunk of the spending offsets were expected to come from “Medicare savings,” including by imposing an inflation cap on Medicare Part D “reinsurance” spending. The issues is complex but the politics aren’t: The deal could have led to charges that Medicare cuts were being used to pay for more government spending.