Janice Schakowsky: “Now we means-test Medicare for 5 percent of beneficiaries. Under proposals to cover 25 percent of beneficiaries, call…”

“Now we means-test Medicare for 5 percent of beneficiaries. Under proposals to cover 25 percent of beneficiaries, call them higher income, means-testing would start at $47,000 in income. Really? These are rich seniors? Covering 10 percent of Medicare beneficiaries would hit individuals with $63,000 in income. Are those wealthy seniors? No. We means-test Medicare right now for people who earn income over $85,000. Here's the other thing. A couple more points I want to make. There is no cap right now on out-of-pocket costs in Medicare, which today average $4,500 for people over 65 years old. So the out-of-pocket costs for Medicare beneficiaries are very high. The average amounts to about 20 percent of their income, out-of-pocket, already. So Medicare costs are already high. The idea now of going further down in income levels to means-test Medicare beneficiaries makes no sense whatsoever. The other thing I wanted to point out is half of all seniors live in households with less than $22,000 in income. So here's the part I don't get about the fiscal cliff proposals. It seems as if the trophy that the Republicans want in exchange for asking people whose income is above $250,000, even though they'll get a tax break on that first $250,000, to ask them to pay a little more, the trophy in return is to ask senior citizens, whose median income is $22,000, to pay more? {time} 2020 Why is this a quid pro quo? Why is this fair? Why is that the trophy?…”