Mike Johnson's Social Security 'Death Panel' Raises Fears Over Benefits

Advocates for Social Security and Medicare say an upcoming budget hearing will lead to the creation of a "death panel" to gut the social programs.

The House Budget Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday morning to examine the need for a fiscal commission to address the nation's debt.

The hearing will review the Fiscal Stability Act of 2023, a bill introduced earlier this month by Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, as well H.R. 710, the Sustainable Budget Act, and H.R. 5779, the Fiscal Commission Act of 2023.

Advocates say the proposed commission is a veiled attempt to gut the popular safety net programs that millions of older Americans rely on.

The commission is "code for a death panel designed to cut Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors," Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the program, wrote in post on X, formerly Twitter.

It's the latest step in House Speaker Mike Johnson's "plot to create a commission designed to fast-track cuts to Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors," Alex Lawson, the execute director of Social Security Works, told Newsweek.

"There's nothing 'bipartisan' about benefit cuts that Democratic, Republican, and independent voters all overwhelmingly oppose. The Biden administration is absolutely right: Such a commission would be nothing more than a death panel for Social Security and Medicare."

In his first remarks after being elected to the speakership in October, Johnson said he would work to create a bipartisan commission to study the national debt and social safety net spending.

"The greatest threat to our national security is our nation's debt," Johnson said in his remarks. "We know this is not going to be an easy task, and tough decisions will have to be made. But the consequences if we don't act now are unbearable. And we're going to establish a bipartisan debt commission to begin working on this crisis immediately."

Johnson has also previously said that programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid pose an "existential threat" to the American way of life and the "whole form of government."

Newsweek has contacted Johnson's office for comment via email.

Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University who previously served as a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare, told Newsweek that he is "generally a skeptic of the value of commissions such as this."

"The primary problem to be solved is not the process, but disagreement over the nature of the challenge and what to do about it," he said.

"Past commissions have only worked where there has been bipartisan agreement going in as to the problem to be solved. Otherwise special processes have simply replicated the partisan and ideological divides that exist in Congress. I would ardently wish such a commission to be successful, but I personally wouldn't bet on it."

Something does need to be done, Blahous added.

"The Social Security financing shortfall under current law is real, massive, increasingly urgent, and a clear threat to the future of the program, no matter how much the disinformation groups may pretend otherwise," he said.

Obligations for Social Security and Medicare are big drivers of U.S. debt, and both programs are in financial trouble.

Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance that covers 65 million older and disabled people, will be unable to pay full benefits for inpatient hospital visits and nursing home stays by 2031, according to the annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released in March. And Social Security won't have enough cash on hand to pay out full benefits to its 66 million retirees beginning in 2033, the report said.

President Joe Biden has vowed to rebuff any Republican-led efforts to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits. A Biden campaign spokesperson called out Johnson for wanting to "gut Social Security and Medicare" after he became speaker.

In February, the White House slammed a proposal by House Republican committee and caucus chairs to set up a panel examining Social Security and Medicare as part of debt limit negotiations.

"The American people want more jobs and lower costs, not a death panel for Medicare and Social Security," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Bloomberg at the time.

Asked for comment on Tuesday, the White House shared a memo sent out on October 12, as House Republicans remained split over who should replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The memo said that "cutting Social Security and Medicare continues to be one proposal that truly unites their conference."

The president "has been crystal clear: no matter who leads the House Republican Conference, he won't let them cut one penny from Americans' hard-earned retirement benefits," the memo added.