Trump’s Medicare Trap

The incoming Trump Administration has been sending mixed signals about the fate of Medicare. But if Trump advisers and GOP lawmakers are serious about slashing government spending it is hard to see how they will ignore the program, which last year cost $850 billion and accounted for about one out of every six dollars the federal government spent.

Trump’s problem: Cutting Medicare spending risks the fury of both recipients and providers. And any effort to accelerate the shift to Medicare Advantage, which has strong support among Trump advisers, could increase federal spending even as it limits the government’s role in insuring health care. And that paradox could generate deep divisions within the new administration and among congressional Republicans.