On behalf of the Medicare Rights Center and the Center for Medicare Advocacy, we are writing to express our opposition to H.J. Res. 2 or any balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Our organizations share a commitment to promoting access to affordable, high-quality health care for older adults and people with disabilities. We are extremely concerned that a balanced budget amendment would undermine the programs—including Medicare and Social Security—that these individuals and other working families rely on to live with health and dignity.
In particular, we are troubled that a balanced budget amendment would require expenditures in any year to be offset by revenues collected in that same year. This would prevent the Medicare program from using the Part A trust fund for its intended purpose of paying beneficiary hospitalization costs, since most of its $200 billion in Treasury securities were collected in prior years. Similarly, Social Security would be prohibited from using its $2.9 trillion in reserves to pay out retirement benefits…
