5 Questions: Biden's "Briefing on Seniors Issues"

Today, Vice President Biden will speak at an event the White House bills as a "Community Leaders Briefing on Seniors Issues." Five questions the Vice President should answer in his speech.

1. Given the dire warnings about the solvency of Medicare by the Administration’s own actuary, when will the President offer a plan to strengthen it? The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be bankrupt in 2024. Medicare's unfunded liabilities are actually made worse by $2 trillion under the President's health care law. Yet President Obama continues to submit budgets that do nothing to preserve the program, and he has failed to comply with the law requiring him to present a plan to prevent the funding shortfall.

2. How will the Medicare cuts in the President’s health care law affect seniors? The health care law cut Medicare by $500,000,000,000 to fund new government programs for other people. Even before these cuts, Medicare was facing systemic financial problems.

3. How will the practical effects of the cuts to Medicare Advantage in the President’s health care law affect seniors? According to the Medicare actuary, millions of seniors will have to give up health care plans they have and like. Many other seniors will lose extra benefits provided by Medicare Advantage plans. Under the health care law, seniors would have seen these cuts this October. So the Administration created a sham "bonus program" to postpone the cuts until after the election.

4. When will the Administration explain to seniors how decisions by a board of Washington bureaucrats will determine access to care? The President’s health care law set up a new panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats to ration health care. In a recent survey, 80 percent of doctors said that this board will harm seniors’ access to care.

5. Why does health care cost more now than before the President’s health care law? The health care law contains at least 18 separate tax increases totaling more than $500 billion over 10 years. Much of this will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums and higher prices for the drugs and medical devices that many seniors need. There is currently at $4,893 gap between what the President promised in health care premium reductions and the rise in premiums.