Vice President Kamala Harris recently claimed during a speech that former President Donald Trump tried to cut Medicare every year he was in office. This statement, however, has been found to be false by multiple sources, including an NBC News fact check. The fact-check found that Trump’s White House budget proposals did not call for benefit cuts to Medicare; instead, they targeted providers and suppliers through new incentives and a lower inflation benchmark.
In contrast, the Biden-Harris administration has moved to cut Medicare Advantage, which is so popular among seniors that over 50 percent of them choose it over traditional Medicare. Additionally, due to the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, they had to bail out Medicare Part D using billions of dollars to bail out insurers and placate seniors just 100 days before the presidential election.
The Trump administration’s efforts to bail out Medicare Part D premiums with billions of dollars have been compared to putting a “tourniquet on a mortal wound” by Joe Grogan, who served as the director of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council. Despite these claims, there is no evidence that the Trump administration ever attempted to cut Medicare benefits during their time in office.