Clinton Promises To Back Lawmakers On Medicare Hikes Republicans Leery Of Attempt To Rescue Means Testing

A controversial Senate proposal to make well-off seniors pay higher Medicare premiums was scrapped this week.

Or was it?

Amid news reports that budget negotiators had tabled the idea, President Clinton offered Tuesday to defend anyone in Congress who comes out in support of means testing - in this case, a sliding scale of premiums for individuals who make $50,000 or more and couples who make $75,000 or more.

“My best judgment is that a big majority of the American people will support this,” Clinton told reporters, hoping to spur stalled talks on Capitol Hill. “They understand how big the baby boomer retirement generation is.”

Clinton said he is “very hopeful” that the premium increases would be included in the final budget agreement, which Congress has pledged to approve before its August recess.

“I would be happy to defend the vote of any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who votes for this,” Clinton said after meeting with his budget advisers. In part, Clinton was responding to GOP charges that he has not shown leadership in the politically sensitive issue of Medicare reform.

Republican negotiators, especially in the House, have privately expressed doubts that Clinton would approve of raising Medicare premiums for upper-income beneficiaries. In the 1996 election, Democrats accused Republicans of cutting the budget at the expense of seniors.

On Tuesday, Clinton also tried to bridge what has become a major impasse in budget negotiations by proposing that the Treasury Department collect the increased premiums instead of the Internal Revenue Service, which is part of Treasury.

“We think that would ease a lot of the Republican and, frankly, some of the Democratic concerns that it would look like a tax increase,” Clinton said.

White House aides conceded that Clinton’s proposal for Treasury to collect the premiums was mostly cosmetic. Earlier in negotiations, Republicans had said IRS involvement would give the appearance of a tax increase - potential ammunition for the Democrats in next year’s House and Senate elections.

Sen. Connie Mack of Florida was among the Republicans reacting cautiously to Clinton’s comments on Tuesday. “He’s given us permission to shoot ourselves in the foot on Medicare,” Mack said.

But some Republicans said they would consider the president’s latest idea.

“We’re going to have to evaluate it,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer of Texas. “It may be a movement in the right direction on that issue.”

Unlike the House, the Senate had hoped to use the budget deal as a vehicle for enacting long-term changes to control Medicare costs. The means-testing proposal is a major hurdle to completion of the five-year balanced budget agreement reached this spring by the White House and Congress - a deal that left up to Congress how to trim $115 billion in future Medicare spending.

Reports that the proposal had been scrapped were “a bit premature,” said Martin Corry, director of federal affairs for the American Association of Retired Persons, which opposes linking Medicare premiums to beneficiaries’ incomes. “Nothing’s off the table. Everything is still a little bit in play.”

Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., a budget negotiator and leading proponent of the premium increases, said, “The president made a very strong statement today. It’s alive as far as I’m concerned.”

It’s dead as far as Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., is concerned.

“Anything that affects the benefits of seniors is just something that all members of Congress tread on very lightly and are very concerned about and weigh very carefully,” Shaw said. “I think the whole issue of means testing should be considered (by a commission).

“For now, I think that the whole matter has been put on hold and that it’s not coming back to the House for a vote.”

Robert Reischauer, a health-care policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said the chances for premium increases were slim, although the idea passed the Senate in June with bipartisan support.

Mark Mills, Mack’s spokesman, put it this way: “There is some apprehension on the part of House Republicans to do something that they’re just going to get shellacked for by the Democrats and the administration next year.”