Page 22 - Means Testing News Today

622639. well bring the results later on in the show. joining me tonight is congressman emanuel cleaver from missouri. great to have you with us. >> good to be with you. >> id like to talk about the congressional black caucus if i could. they have been very, very strong about do not touch the entitlements, were not going to move on this. so you have the president not moving on rates. you have your caucus moving on entitlements. although you said the democratic leadership -- you said you could sup...

Get a deal. medicare can, i think, be massaged in terms of means testing. with the upper income individuals paying more or sometimes all of their medical expenses, it makes no sense for the government to pay medicare costs for someone earning $700,000 a year. so i think we can do some means testing. but by no means am i saying it should be low enough so our elderly and poorist americans are going to pay for the deficit. but we want a deal. and keep in mind, i think this is very important. if the...

The point is that the most successful social welfare states are one where theres this universal pay in. the way were going with this inequality is talking about means testing, which is a way from a model of universal pay in and benefit. thats sustainable. >> chris hayes, thank you for being here. one of the coolest things human beings has ever seen celebrates a big birthday. its sort of a best new moment of geek and its coming up. ♪ the weather outside is frightful ♪

In the show. joining me tonight is congressman emanuel cleaver from missouri. congressman, great to have you with us. >> good to be with you. >> you bet. i would like to talk about the congressional black caucus if i could. they have been very, very strong about do not touch the entitlements, were not going to move on this. so you have the president not moving on rates. you have your caucus not moving at all on entitlements. although you said the democratic leadership -- you said you could suppo...

Overall and we have much stingier-defined public goods. the point is that the most successful social welfare states are one where theres this universal pay in. the way were going with this inequality is talking about means testing, which is a way from a model of universal pay in and benefit. thats sustainable. >> chris hayes, thank you for being here. oneover the coolest things human beings has ever seen celebrates a big birthday. its sort of a best new moment of geek and its coming up. comes ...

>> yeah, exactly. and certainly medicare and medicaid are the two great drivers of the entitlements. of course, medicaid always seems easier to cut because thats not a middle-class entitlement. that helps the poor. >> right. >> are you concerned that both sides may be more willing to cut medicaid and leave a middle-class entitlement like medicare on the table? >> no. i think wooe geve got to do medicare. its going to pull this economy down. weve got to deal with it. and i think most rational peo...

Like in the affordable care act which added eight years of solvency to medicare. we have a chance to do that well. >> whether you say entitlement reform, are you talking about raising the age that one would qualify for medicare? are you talking about changing the means testing for social security as well? >> first of all, social security is a separate issue unrelated to the fiscal cliff discussions and is not part of this discussion in my opinion. when it comes to the savings that were able to c...

Aggressive on entitlement reform? and im talking specifically about medicare here. >> you know, he does face some similar challenges. theyre not exactly the same. theres not an absolute line drawn by most democrats, but i think most democrats would be willing to talk about some sort of means testing. but thats a difficult conversation to have in a couple of weeks, i think, for the democratic base. he could get out ahead. he does have a lot of running room right now. i guess i kind of join congre...

Reform. weve heard some details about what they might be considering, you know, means testing, changing the means testing, raising the age of eligibility. what are you hearing with regards to sbimgentitlement ref that they would like to see versus the entitlement reforms that the president and democrats are likely to offer? >> i think all of this is more nuanced than we know right now. john boehner has to let rates go up. i think thats right. whether or not its to 37 or whether or not we raise t...

They felt this is a nonstarter bringing up the debt ceiling, not being specific about entitlements. what is the democratic caucus response to the speaker? >> i think hes wrong in this sense. im optimistic. i think things are coming to a head. the republicans have a clear choice to continue the norquist stranglehold or have it broken and the consequences, not continuing the middle class tax cut and continuing the wealthy for all the consequences for the unemployed, those who go to doctors and doc...