If the supercommittee and Congress refuse to increase taxes as part of the deficit reduction plan, both Medicare and Medicaid could succumb to cuts so large that their missions of helping the aged, disabled and poor obtain equitable healthcare will be "impossible" to fulfill, according to a Nov. 3 commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine by Henry Aaron, PhD, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
The supercommittee is charged with cutting the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, and Dr. Aaron said spending cuts cannot exclusively be a cure-all. Rather, he said tax increases must account for a "sizable fraction" if Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and other governmental healthcare programs are to live up to their 50-year-old commitments.
"Should the various healthcare interest groups prevail on the specific issues that now occupy them without winning sizable revenue increases as part of a deficit-reduction program, it would be rather like securing a nicer cell for a prisoner facing certain execution," he said in the article.
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The supercommittee is charged with cutting the national deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, and Dr. Aaron said spending cuts cannot exclusively be a cure-all. Rather, he said tax increases must account for a "sizable fraction" if Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and other governmental healthcare programs are to live up to their 50-year-old commitments.
"Should the various healthcare interest groups prevail on the specific issues that now occupy them without winning sizable revenue increases as part of a deficit-reduction program, it would be rather like securing a nicer cell for a prisoner facing certain execution," he said in the article.
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