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Pelosi: 'Don't Even Think About Raising the Medicare Age'

Dem refusal to touch entitlements marches on

December 13, 2012

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Thursday that Republicans should not "even think about raising the Medicare age" as part of a deal to avert the fiscal cliff at a press briefing.

Democrats' resistance to reforming entitlements--the chief drivers of U.S. debt and deficit moving forward--have positioned the party to head over the cliff, the Free Beacon reported earlier this week:

The White House has all but admitted it has no viable solution to reform programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, which are primary drivers of the long-term debt problem.

"We’re not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long-term problem," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) in February. "What we do know is, we don’t like yours."

Even if Obama really was eager to reform entitlements, he faces strong opposition from members of his own party and an army of left-wing client groups such as labor unions and the AARP, many of which were represented as the first White House meeting the president hosted following his reelection.

"We urge you to reject changes to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security that would cut benefits, shift costs to states, alter the structure of these critical programs or force vulnerable populations to bear the burden of deficit-reduction efforts," a group of Democratic Senators wrote in a letter to the president.