Reply #14: Look at the details....this is unacceptable [View All]

* Raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits


* Peg future benefits to a less-generous measure of inflation and curb benefit increases even more for the top 40 percent of earners.


* Cuts to the Medicare program for the elderly and the Medicaid health plan for the poor and disabled would total $2.6 trillion over 10 years, far more than proposed by the fiscal commission or House Republicans.


* Raise the Medicare retirement age to 67 by 2027 and then gradually increasing it until the retirement age hits 69 in 2080. Would raise by two months every year beginning with people who were born in 1949
(who will turn 65 in 2014).


* Raise Medicare premiums for doctor visits so that premiums pay 35 percent of such costs instead of the 25 percent currently covered.


* Transfers Medicaid to states


* Cuts 300,000 jobs from the federal workforce


* Hundreds of billions from the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and Education. NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration and numerous other government agencies are also hit with billions in reductions.


* Block military retirees from the Tricare Prime health care plan, the option with the lowest out-of-pocket cost and raise the prescription drug copayment under the program, as well as require higher out-of-pocket fees.


* Closes Department of Defense (DOD) elementary schools and end subsidies for DOD grocery stores



http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20080416-503544.html