WASHINGTON — The last time a president used an obscure law to spend billions of Medicare dollars without congressional approval, Republican lawmakers called it a political ploy, a technicality, a way to write a “blank check” to help win an election. They launched investigations and issued subpoenas.
But that was when President Obama was in charge. Now, it’s President Trump who’s using the same little-known Medicare law for a maneuver that even some Republicans admit is more brazen than Obama’s attempt. And so far, Republicans are silent.
Trump’s plan is to ship seniors $200 prescription drug coupons in the coming weeks, a massive, $6.6 billion initiative that he announced less than six weeks before Election Day. He is relying on the same authority that Obama used in 2010 to bolster a more expensive, albeit less outwardly political, plan to direct bonus payments to high-performing insurance companies ahead of his own reelection campaign. Republicans were outraged, and ultimately, a government watchdog recommended the Obama administration kill the program. It did not.
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