Medicare

 Common Dreams- A report released on Friday confirmed what many Democratic lawmakers have long been warning about: Republicans' massive budget law will trigger significant cuts to Medicare.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the GOP's budget package and acknowledged that it would be required to issue a sequestration, which is essentially a cancellation of budgetary resources.

The sequestration is required under the rules set out by the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010 that requires spending cuts that are equal to a piece of legislation's negative impact on the budget deficit.

The only way to avoid these cuts, said the CBO, would be for Congress to pass "subsequent legislation that would offset the deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill's effects on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the statutory requirements."

The CBO said that these cuts could take as much as $45 billion out of Medicare for fiscal year 2026. What's more, the amount cut from Medicare would increase in every subsequent year, resulting in total cuts of as much as $536 billion between 2026 and 2034.