President Joe Biden intends to raise taxes on higher earners in order to finance Medicare, expand the health system and maintain it beyond 2050 without changing benefits and affecting beneficiaries.

In an opinion piece quoted in "The New York Times" and the newspaper Económico, Joe Biden accuses the Republicans of wanting to end the health program, an accusation he had already made at the beginning of February. "For decades, I've heard my Republican friends say that the only serious way to preserve Medicare was to end the benefits, including turning it into a voucher program, which would end up being worth less and less every year. Some threatened our economy unless I went along with cutting benefits," the article reads.

"Only in Washington do people say they are saving something by destroying it," he says.

Biden points out that Medicare "is more than a government program. It's a guarantee that Americans can count on when they retire". This is public health insurance for people over 65, young people with disabilities or low incomes, to which they deduct part of their salary.

It should be remembered that access to health care is a much-discussed issue in the United States, and is constantly ranked as one of the most expensive and worst performing in the developed world.

"We're going to ask the wealthiest to pay a little more of their fair share, to strengthen Medicare for all over the long term," says Biden. The president's budget "proposes to increase the Medicare tax rate on earned income above $400,000 to 5% from the current 3.8%". This money will go directly to the Medicare fund, in order to "protect taxpayers' investment and the program's bottom line," he announced.

In the article, Joe Biden points out that when the system was approved, "1% of the richest had no more than five times the wealth of the poorest 50% combined, and it makes sense that some adjustments should be made to reflect current reality."

"We're going to ask them to pay their fair share so that the millions of workers who helped them build that wealth can retire with dignity and with the Medicare they paid for."

With the health budget set to be released this week, Biden guarantees that the Medicare fund will last beyond 2050 and that it won't be necessary to cut "a penny from benefits". "In fact, we've gotten better value by ensuring that Americans get better care than the money they pay for Medicare."

Recalling that MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans and Donald Trump supporters have a different vision from his and his party's, Biden points out that they want the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, which means "taking away Medicare's power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, ending the $35 monthly limit for insulin and removing the $2,000 annual limit for seniors."

"If MAGA Republicans get their way, seniors will pay more out of pocket for prescription drugs and insulin, the deficit will be bigger and Medicare will be weaker. The only winner will be Big Pharma," he writes in the New York Times. "This is not how we extend the life of Medicare for more generations or grow the economy."

In the article, Biden recalls that "two of the biggest reforms in the health sector since the creation of Medicare, both of which could save hundreds of millions over the coming decades, were signed by President Barack Obama and me", recalling the time when he was vice-president of the United States (2009 to 2017) and launched the Affordable Care Act, which became known as Obamacare.

"The Affordable Care Act adopted smart reforms to make our health care system more efficient while improving Medicare coverage for seniors," while "the Inflation Reduction Act ended Medicare's absurd ban on negotiating lower drug prices, limiting the total cost of prescription drugs for seniors and saving thousands of dollars a year." According to Biden, these negotiations, combined with rebates for excessive price increases, will reduce the deficit by 159 billion dollars.

The US president points out that there has been a significant slowdown in the growth of health spending since Obamacare was approved, with Medicare spending one billion dollars less since the plan came into force.