TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Peter Suderman points out a, uh, tension in the Obama administration’s position on Medicare:

You can see a related tension in the administration’s approach to Medicare, the federal health program for seniors. Unlike Medicaid, Medicare is not exempt from sequestration; it’ll face a 2 percent reduction, which will amount to about $11 billion next year. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, noting that the cuts will hit health and drug plans as well as other providers, has warned that this will “result in billions of dollars in lost revenues to Medicare doctors, hospitals, and other providers, who will only be reimbursed at 98 cents on the dollar for their services to Medicare beneficiaries.” And the White House doesn’t seem too pleased either: The Office of Management and Budget’s report on sequestration complains that GOP alternatives to the spending reductions are wrong partly because they “fail to address Medicare sequestration.”

Yet the White House’s whole theory of Medicare reform is built around cutting reimbursements to health providers: When President Obama talks about modestly reforming Medicare without cutting benefits, that’s exactly what he means. Obama has repeatedly called for cutting payments to drug manufacturers, and ObamaCare includes more than $700 billion in cuts to Medicare, which are distributed amongst the various big players in the health industry. The Medicare cost-control board that ObamaCare sets up is expected to focus heavily on reimbursement cuts.