With Second Term Underway and Budget Battle Ahead, Obama’s Medicare Legacy Is Not Yet Written

As the deficit reduction discussions heat up again in Congress, Medicare will certainly come under the microscope. What happens to the federal program could impact President Obama's legacy as it relates to Medicare.

Here's an interesting article my colleague Donald Sjoerdsma wrote that looked into the issue.

Even with a major health care reform bill under his belt, Obama’s legacy on health care, and Medicare in particular, isn’t set. As his second term begins, he faces a combative Republican-controlled House calling for spending cuts. Obama said he is open to making “modest adjustments” to Medicare at a White House press conference on Jan. 14.

A week later, at his second inaugural address, he reiterated his belief that U.S. entitlement programs are fundamental to what the country stands for, saying “The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take risks that make this country great.”

Experts say the outcome of deficit reduction negotiations as they relate to health care, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, will, in part, shape his presidential legacy.

“The only real criticism that really stung in the 2012 election was the fact that spending had increased so much under his presidency,” said David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at The University of Akron’s Bliss Institute.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE: With Second Term Underway and Budget Battle Ahead, Obama’s Medicare Legacy Is Not Yet Written