There has been a good deal of hand-wringing on the left over the prospect of the entitlements summit that President Obama has talked about. The idea is that Peter Orzag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is the mastermind of a planned raid that will dramatically cut Social Security benefits. Ezra Klein at The American Prospect gives what I think is a much more realistic projection of how this is likely to play out:
That, basically, has been Orszag's project: Talk a lot about the health care crisis and longer-term problems in the budget and get people to stop talking about an illusory crisis in a made-up program called socialsecurityandmedicareandmedicaid. Because what Orszag and [Nobel Pize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul] Krugman both realize is that Social Security's unfunded liabilities only look like the sort of problem you need to "fix" if you're mixing it in with Medicare's unfunded liabilities. If there's an "entitlements problem" that requires an "entitlements commission" then that will cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. If there's no "entitlements problem" and instead a health reform problem and some small questions about a politically electric program, then what you get is health reform -- which is also a way to slow Medicaid and Medicare growth without resorting to cuts -- and an end to the fear-mongering on Social Security. Orszag is one of the good guys here.
While it is true that Orszag understands that health insurance reform is far more important to the long-term health of the federal budget, he has still been focused on proposing social security reforms for many years.
ReplyDeleteHere is a 2003 SSA analysis of his plan: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/DiamondOrszag_20031008.pdf
Here is his 2005 plan as published: http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/orszag/200504security.pdf
There is no way he is going to give up an opportunity to work towards these changes while also working on Medicare and other entitlements. In numerous Congressional testimonies he has been laying the groundwork, and by wrapping it all into a broader entitlement reform package which includes health insurance he can achieve these goals easier than if Social Security reform has to be dealt with later as a seperate issue.