Fact Check: Will Trump Cut Social Security and Medicare? | 2024 US Election News

Vice President Kamala Harris makes her final argument for the president in a new television ad that attacks former President Donald Trump on health care, entitlement programs and taxes.

“What will a second Trump term look like? All this is included in his “Project 2025” program,” says the narrator. “It would allow insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, cut Social Security and Medicare, and cut taxes for billionaires.”

For months, the Harris campaign has tied Trump to Project 2025, a 900-page guide to policy proposals for the next Republican administration created by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

There is significant overlap between the people involved in the project and former Trump administration officials. But Project 2025 is not part of Trump’s 2024 agenda, and he is trying to distance himself from it.

With this in mind, the advertisement is a mixture of accuracy. It references Trump’s previous statements about repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA), misleads viewers about “cuts” to benefit programs that are popular among older Americans, and fails to take into account that middle-income Americans will also receive some tax breaks under Trump .

What Trump’s and Project 2025’s plans say about pre-existing conditions

To support its claim that Trump would allow insurance companies to deny people coverage for pre-existing conditions, the Harris campaign pointed to the actions and comments of Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, regarding repealing the ACA. The 2010 health care law, signed by former President Barack Obama, requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

In his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to repeal the ACA and, while president, supported unsuccessful efforts by congressional Republicans to repeal and replace it.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s position shifted back and forth. He has sometimes stated that he wants to replace the law with an “alternative.” But in March, he wrote on Truth Social that he “has no intention of repealing” the law and instead wants to make it “better” and “less expensive.” During the Sept. 10 presidential debate with Harris, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the law but would “work it out as best we can” before introducing his plan.

On Oct. 17, more than 1,500 doctors published a letter calling on Trump to reveal details about how he would change the ACA, saying voters need an explanation to make an informed decision.

Vance tried to unpack some of those details in a Sept. 15 interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” saying his administration would deregulate insurance markets but would also “make sure that existing insurance coverage—conditions—are covered.” A few days later, Vance floated the idea of ​​grouping chronically ill people into insurance pools based on their increased risk. Risk pools refer to groups of people who share the burden of healthcare costs.

Placing chronically ill patients in higher-risk groups would upend a key principle of the health care law that largely ended the practice by requiring insurers to place all individual market participants in the same risk pool. According to KFF Health News, this is done to control premium costs by using lower costs incurred by healthy members to control higher costs incurred by less healthy members. Separating sicker people into their own group could lead to higher costs for people with chronic health problems, potentially making coverage unaffordable, experts say.

Project 2025 does not require repealing the ACA or pre-existing protections. He recommends codifying Trump-era rules to expand short-term health plans with limited coverage. Democrats call the plans “junk insurance,” arguing they limit care, charge people with pre-existing conditions more money and can lead to surprise medical bills.

Prop 2025 would not cut Social Security and proposes some changes to Medicare

Harris’s ads are misleading about both of their social security plans. Trump and “Project 2025”. Trump has said he will not seek cuts to Social Security benefits, and none of the 10 references to Social Security in the policy document mention cuts.

In his previous campaigns and before he became a politician, Trump said about a half-dozen times that he was open to an overhaul of Social Security, including cuts and privatization. More recently, in a March 2024 interview with CNBC, Trump said of entitlement programs like Social Security: “There’s a lot you can do in terms of benefits, in terms of cuts.” However, he quickly walked back that statement, and his comment contradicts virtually everything else Trump said during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The Trump campaign website says not a penny should be cut from Social Security.

Prop 2025 proposes changes to Medicare, including making Medicare Advantage, Medicare’s private insurance offering, the “default” enrollment option. Medicare Advantage plans have provider networks and may also require prior authorization, which means the plan can approve or deny certain services. Original Medicare plans do not require prior authorization.

The leadership also calls for repealing health care policies enacted under President Joe Biden, such as the Inflation Relief Act. The 2022 law allowed Medicare to negotiate with drug makers for the first time and recently led to an agreement with drug companies to lower costs on 10 high-cost prescriptions for Medicare enrollees. The new prices will take effect in 2026.

Throughout the campaign, Trump said he would not cut Medicare.

Project 2025 and Trump disagree on taxes, but “tax cuts for billionaires” is on the agenda

Generally speaking, the benefits of Trump’s tax plan would accrue to most income groups but would disproportionately benefit wealthier Americans. Project 2025’s recommendations differ from Trump’s tax agenda, although his changes could also result in wealthier people paying lower taxes.

Under the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, income up to $11,600 is currently taxed at 10 percent, income between $11,601 and $47,150 is taxed at 12 percent, and income over 47,151 up to $100,525 is taxed at 22 percent. People who earn more are taxed between 24 and 37 percent.

Project 2025 would create just two income tax rates, one at 15 percent and one at 30 percent, and eliminate most deductions, credits, and exclusions. The program says the 30 percent tax rate should start “at or near the Social Security wage base,” which would be about $168,600 in 2024.

The Blueprint 2025 does not specifically recommend eliminating the standard deduction, the dollar amount that non-itemized taxpayers can subtract from their income before income taxes are applied.

If it were eliminated along with most other tax breaks, people earning up to $190,000 would pay a higher effective tax rate on their entire income, while the richest Americans would pay a lower tax rate.

This is not Trump’s plan. Trump says he will extend provisions of the 2017 tax law that are set to expire at the end of 2025. The law reduced taxes for all income groups, at least initially; wealthier taxpayers benefited disproportionately. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that the law’s tax rate cuts for the top fifth of the income spectrum outpaced the rate cuts for every quintile group.

Trump will cut the corporate tax rate from 21 to 15 percent for companies manufacturing their products in the United States. (A 2017 law cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.) Trump also proposed several more targeted tax cuts, including ending taxes on Social Security benefits, tips and overtime pay.

Penn State’s fiscal model projected the impact of both presidential candidates’ tax plans on the income spectrum in 2026.

Trump’s plan was found to increase after-tax income for every income group. However, the bottom two-fifths of the income spectrum would see a gain of less than 2 percent, the middle fifth would get 2.1 percent, and the second-highest quintile would get 2.8 percent. For cuts affecting the richest one-fifth, the increase would range from 2.7 to 3.7 percent.

In contrast, the Penn-Wharton model projected that the Harris plan would increase after-tax income for the bottom fifth of the population by 18 percent, the second-lowest fifth by 4.8 percent, the middle fifth by 2.7 percent, and the second-highest fifth place by 2.1 percent. The richest 5 percent of people will see their after-tax incomes decline.