This might be the best article I've read in the last few weeks.

One of President Barack Obama's Senate allies said Thursday that an increase in the Medicare eligibility age is "no longer one of the items being considered by the White House" in negotiations with top Republicans on avoiding the so-called fiscal cliff. But Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said he didn't get it directly from the president or the White House.

However, he is regularly updated on the negotiations.Increasing the eligibility age is a key demand by Republicans seeking cost curbs in popular benefit programs in exchange for higher tax revenues.Obama and House Speaker John Boehner remain far apart on a potential agreement to avoid a looming "fiscal cliff" of expiring tax cuts and across-the-board spending cuts.

Durbin is cued into the Obama administration so if he said this then at least it's most probably true. Obama might cave on us, but this is the first real positive stance I've read coming out of the White House on the age of our earned benefits.

I can understand why Republicans feel the need to inflict a massive amount of pain on the elderly population of America (even though raising the age doesn't help alleviate their deficit fetish one bit) because they are sore f*&king losers and need to lash out and hurt someone. It's been their way for over thirty years now and with the lunatic fringe making up the majority of the GOP that trait won't let up any time soon. The villages and absolutely lost when it comes to this. How do they make the argument that we need a bipartisan agreement (which means heavy cuts to entitlements) after Democrats just crushed Conservatives in a huge election?

Digby explains:

Everyone wants compromise in theory, but in reality they don't want vital programs cut. From the Pew Poll also released yesterday:

The polling also suggests that the public generally supports the budget priorities that have been outlined by Democrats. Nearly seven in 10 voters want to raise income tax rates on incomes of more than $250,000, while 54 percent support limiting deductions and 52 percent want to raise the tax rate on investment income. The only entitlement reforms to receive support from more than half of all Americans are reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits for high income seniors. Majorities of those surveyed oppose raising the Social Security or Medicare eligibility age, and 52 percent say they do not want to limit the home mortgage interest deduction. Also unpopular are opposed cuts to the defense budget and welfare programs. More than two-thirds of Americans also object to infrastructure and education cuts.

The confusion is among the Villagers. They seem to think that the proper "compromise" must consist of millionaire chump change in exchange for suffering from the elderly and the sick. (And apparently, many Democrats have signed on to that too --- "everyone has to suffer sacrifice a little bit.") Sure people want compromise --- if it ends up with policies they like. When it doesn't, they think it was a sell-out. The politicians usually know this even if the pundits don't.

Digby links up a great post by Barney Frank in which he describes the insane amounts of money the Military Industrial Complex is costing America and how that should be handled in these negotiations. I just wrote a post called : Why Were Defense Cuts Off The Table On Sunday Morning Shows?

The fiscal cliff once again dominated the Sunday morning talk shows (which isn't a surprise), and entitlement cuts were indeed a focal point by the lead bobblehead of each show. But what I found most offensive was that not one Villager or politician discussed cuts to defense spending as a solution for the Mayan Apocalypse of the federal deficit. In part, the reason the fiscal cliff is coming is because the sequester deal has massive cuts to defense spending

Please read all of Digby's post and then reread all my examples of Sunday talk show malfeasance over the lack of dialogue about defense spending's role in the federal deficit.

Badgered by yon lean and hungry Eric Cantor and the tea party caucus, Speaker John Boehner makes a counteroffer to the White House, and as Wonkblog's Sarah Kliff explains, there are a lot of reasons why his proposal to raise the Medicare age is a bad one (even if Jacob Lew, rumored to be the next secretary of the Treasury, is said not to have a problem with it):

House Speaker John Boehner has made his counter-offer on deficit reduction and, as my colleague Lori Montgomery reports, it floats the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

This isn’t a new idea: It’s come up in a lot of deficit reduction proposals of years past, as economists and legislators stare down a Medicare program eating up a growing chunk of the federal budget.

The idea has, however, gained a bit more traction since the Affordable Care Act passed. If the Medicare age were raised, the thinking has gone, the 3.3 million 65- and 66-year-olds would still be guaranteed access to health coverage through the tax subsidies. The lowest-income seniors — those earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty line – would qualify for Medicaid.

That’s the upside. Health care economists see a number of downsides, too. For one thing, Medicare tends to be a pretty efficient program. Its costs have grown slower than private health insurance plans. The Center for Budget Priorities and Policy estimates that, while the federal government would save $5.7 billion, the rest of the health care system would end up spending $11.4 billion more to provide those same benefits.

Seniors themselves would end up spending $3.7 billion more as the benefits on the exchange would be less robust than those currently covered through Medicare. Employers would end up footing part of the bill, too, continuing to sponsor an additional two years of coverage.

That $2.5 billion in orange on the chart above comes from increasing the premiums that a lot of other people pay for their health insurance coverage. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that moving these seniors into the health insurance exchanges would increase premiums there by 3 percent, as the larger insurance pool absorbs a patient population that tends to be older and sicker than its younger counterparts.

Medicare premiums likely would go up too. These seniors would be the more expensive enrollees on the exchange. But when it comes to Medicare, they’re the least expensive patients, the younger population with fewer health care needs than, say, the 90-year-old cohort.

There’s also concern that these seniors might not even have an option should the eligibility age get raised as some states do not plan to expand their Medicaid programs. That could leave any senior who earns less than 133 percent of the federal poverty line — about $15,000 for an individual — without any coverage option at all.

Not to mention that many, many specialists refuse to take Medicaid patients -- a real hardship for the elderly.

Oh, come on. Of course Obama's trying to cut Medicare and raise the eligibility age. Why do you think he talked about protecting "current beneficiaries?" You'd have to believe in unicorns if you heard that speech and still think otherwise. But you know what the problem with that is? First, our middle-aged, stressed-out, uninsured bodies are giving out. If we don't die first, but manage to hang on to age 67, we'll be moving into the Medicare system with much more serious (and expensive) illnesses that could have been treated more cheaply in the prevention stage. The other problem is, we'll have to work much longer -- and that will take up jobs that young people desperately need.

Other than those little problems, I'd have to say that having a Democratic president embracing Republican talking points on Medicare (even for a bill that has almost no chance of passing) is a fabulous idea! What's not to love?

WASHINGTON -- In his jobs speech before Congress Thursday night, President Barack Obama appeared to call on congressional Democrats to cut Medicare, a politically toxic proposal that undercuts a previous Democratic campaign strategy.

Obama pushed to cut Medicare during the debate over raising the federal debt ceiling, urging lawmakers from both parties to accept a "grand bargain" that involved cutting both Social Security and Medicare. Obama's move upset congressional Democrats, who saw a proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to radically cut Medicare as an attack ad opening going into the Nov. 2012 elections. House Republicans voted for the Ryan proposal en masse, just months after hordes of GOP freshmen were swept into office amid advertisements vowing to protect the hugely popular entitlement program.

[...] "Now, I realize there are some in my party who don’t think we should make any changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid, and I understand their concerns," Obama said during his speech Thursday. "But here’s the truth. Millions of Americans rely on Medicare in their retirement. And millions more will do so in the future. They pay for this benefit during their working years. They earn it. But with an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. And if we don’t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won’t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it. "

Yep, he went there. We have to burn the village in order to save it!

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