We are not out of the woods on raising Medicare eligibility age and imposing chained COLA on SocSec

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171728/emerging-fiscal-cliff-deal-spares-corporations-not-safety-net

Emerging Fiscal Cliff Deal Spares Corporations, but Not the Safety Net

But say Obama actually succeeds at pushing through truly revenue-neutral corporate tax reform: given the painful safety net cuts being discussed, some progressives might argue that at least the corporate tax stuff is preferable, considering Obama has to give up something in the negotiations.

Maybe. But not so fast—it’s not necessarily an either/or. More like a “both.” The Journal article notes what has already been widely reported: if Republicans relent on top income tax rates, the White House will move to cut safety net programs deeper than what’s been discussed already:

The administration’s new proposal made no major concessions on entitlements such as Medicare, which it is withholding until Republicans give up ground on tax rates.[…]

Some Democrats regard Republicans’ eventual concession on taxes as a foregone conclusion, and they have begun to talk among themselves about which concessions on entitlement programs they might be asked to make. The three leading proposals floated by Republicans include increasing the eligibility age for Medicare, requiring wealthier people to pay more for Medicare and changing the formula for calculating Consumer Price Index adjustments to slow the growth of Social Security benefits.

This is truly damaging stuff. As we have noted, raising the Medicare eligibility age—which Obama didn’t rule out yesterday in an interview with ABC News—saves the government $5.4 billion but shifts $11.4 billion in costs onto seniors, their employers, and states. A new Center for American Progress study out this week finds that if the Medicare age is raised from 65 to 67, as many as 5.4 million seniors would have to either postpone retirement, buy expensive private insurance, or get on Medicaid.