A lot of you have been writing in that you’ve contacted members of the House and Senate and they simply refuse to tell you how their bosses will vote on Paul Ryan’s Medicare Phaseout plan. They’ve never heard of it; there’s no bill; the boss doesn’t have a position yet. Yada yada yada. Here’s something that will help. There is a plan. In fact, there’s a bill. And virtually every member of the House at least has voted on it. The Ryan Medicare Phaseout proposal is part of the Ryan budget which has been voted on in the House every year since 2011.
Follow me below the fold for more details.
Here’s our write up from 2015 when the Ryan budget blueprint passed for the fifth time.
Like previous proposals by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the new plan by House Budget Chair Tom Price (R-GA) transforms Medicare after 10 years into a market exchange (which bears many similarities to Obamacare) where seniors receive a federal subsidy to buy insurance from a menu of options.
The menu includes private insurance plans and the option of staying in traditional Medicare. Like Ryan’s proposal last year, it does not impose a cap on how much Medicare is allowed to spend per beneficiary, a GOP budget aide said. It is a response to criticism that the “premium support” structure could lead to high out-of-pocket costs that make coverage unaffordable for seniors.
The budget passed by a vote of 219 to 208. All 219 were Republicans, all but 26 members of the GOP caucus. Did your Rep vote for it? Easy enough to find out. Here’s the roll call. For all 219 of them, they’ve already voted for the plan. They know about it because they voted for it. So no one can wriggle out of saying they don’t know about it or there’s no plan or they haven’t announced a position yet. They already voted for it – at least if they’re among the 219 who voted for it.
The only question is whether they plan to vote on it again now that Obama’s veto pen is out of the way.
