Why? Because you're used to it? If it's a deduction, then eliminating it is not an increase. In the same way that taking a retail item off the sale price is not a price hike. Sheesh.
By the way, Medicare is only 40 years old. So I'm also not quite going along with claims that the program is an inviolate American right. But I'm not happy it's going to be privatized and gutted. Private health insurance companies spend, on average, 31% of their money on non-health-related things. Medicare spends 3%.*
* this efficiency does not extend to the recently-enacted Medicare Part D, which is not administered by the government, but by private, for-profit agencies. Remind me again why a single-payer, Medicare For All system was ruled out as the solution to skyrocketing health care costs.
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