March is when congress decides on a budget. Aka the first legal time in Trump 47 administration that they can actually influence the budget. Some GOP propositions propositions include Medicare cuts and overall trying to lower the budget by 33% IIRC. I'd bet good money we're going to see a bloodbath in the Capitol, be it among congress, or among the people reacting to whatever results happen.
Medicare "cuts", it's 100% of Medicare, and big % of foodstamps as well. And increasing debt ceiling, seems like most of it will go to tax cuts for the rich.
Just to be precise, it's a cost equivalent of 100% of 2024 Medicaid (sorry, I typed the wrong one) spending, amortized over 10 years. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't mean it's cutting all of Medicaid at once, right?
It's still drastic, though. 10% every year means 100b in cuts to Medicaid. More money than what's allocated to the DoED
Medicaid spending was 15% higher in 2023 than in 2019, after adjusting for inflation. (40% before adjusting for inflation.) So a 10% cut would just bring it back to pre-pandemic levels.
How much would you like to bet? Is 20k a good number? Can you be more specific about how you’d define bloodbath so we can agree if it does or does not happen?
>Can you be more specific about how you’d define bloodbath
Sure, there's 3 vectors I'm looking at here.
Legislative:
- The government shuts down for 3 or more days before deciding a budget. 1990 shutdown was the most similar situation (which includes Medicaid cuts, but ironically enough was trying to raise taxes) and lasted that long.
Executive:
- Trump vetoes the budget more than once. 1990 as a reference once again, H.W. Bush vetoed the 2nd proposal , once total.
Judicial:
- Trump and congress decide on a budget but judges intervene on the allocation. I'm not sure if this ever happened, but I couldn't find any accounts. So I'd say involving all 3 branches qualifies
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- I'll also lump in any significant attempts at violence or death (natural or otherwise) over any politicians involved in such budget debates as part of that (the most literal "bloodbath" possible)
Those seem like fair enough criteria?
>How much would you like to bet? Is 20k a good number?
I'm sadly still a part of an extended job search, so I have no real money to bet. But if this was 2022, I'd probably put 5k onto it in terms of confidence.
To be honest, I lost track of which ones they wanted to cut. It probably was Medicaid instead. I wouldn't be surprised if Medicare and even Social Security come down the line at this point.
98% of Americans 65 and older are on Medicare and are overwhelming happy with it. This is true both for those on traditional Medicare and on Medicare Advantage.
For most of them having to switch to any of the existing ways that people under 65 can get health insurance would cost them significantly more and significantly reduce their coverage.
For those who are on traditional Medicare it would also mean going from being able to see nearly any non-HMO doctor (over 90% of non-HMO doctors accept Medicare) to going to managed care insurance where they have to deal with in network vs out of network and where the insurance company is practically looking over your doctor's shoulder and interfering in your care.
Messing significantly with Medicare would thus seriously piss off about 60 million people over the costs and reduced coverage that alternatives provide, and piss of the 28 million of those who are on traditional Medicare even more because of having to switch to managed care.
45% of those people have guns in their households. Most probably wouldn't resort to violence, but there are 27 million of them. That's enough that I'd be surprised if that doesn't leave thousands who would resort to violence.
Look at how many people seem to think the UHC CEO killing was justified, and this would be a lot more disgruntled people.
March will be no different than January.