Medicare Madness

Harris has a new plan to "save" Medicare:

The new benefit would cover long-term home care services, including in-home health care aides. Families could spend up to $75,000 a year on home healthcare aides while Medicare only covers part of the costs if the senior is homebound. At the other end of a voter's lifespan, Harris is proposing making the pandemic-era child tax credit permanent as well as establishing a $6,000 tax credit for parents of newborns. Harris will unveil the new home care benefit for seniors during her appearance on "The View" on Tuesday. Politico: Harris plans to pay for the new senior home care benefit by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing discounts for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare that drug companies are required to provide, and reducing hidden costs associated with the middlemen in the drug pricing process known as pharmacy benefit managers, among other measures. Medicare currently only covers at-home skilled nursing care, home health aides and other kinds of assistance under specific circumstances, leaving families to foot the costs of in-home care on their own. The issue is also personal for Harris, who has talked on the campaign trail about taking care of her mother, Shyamala, when she was dying of cancer. Browbeating drug companies to lower the cost of drugs won't even come close to paying for this new benefit. The Harris campaign is bragging about reducing drug prices for 10 drugs that will supposedly save Medicare $9 billion. The next round of browbeating will include 15 more drugs. This is a program that will cost Medicare at least $40 billion a year, according to the left-wing Brookings Institution.

Maybe they really will kill Medicare, after all...