Democrats put Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to cut Social Security and create a voucher system for Medicare in the spotlight at yesterday’s health care summit, but both sides proclaimed entitlement reform must be high on the national agenda.
Lawmakers wrestling with finishing up health care reform legislation yesterday dared each other to actually do something about it. The Republicans appointed Ryan, ranking member on the powerful Budget Committee, to speak for them yesterday on cost control. He did not tout his own plan – which GOP leaders have sidestepped – but lambasted the Democrats.
“We want to decentralize the system, give more power to small businesses, more power to individuals, and make insurers compete more. But if you federalize it and standardize it and mandate it, you do not achieve that,” Ryan said.
He charged the Senate health care bill which is closest to the final product doesn’t control cost or reduce deficits.
“Instead, this bill adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have,” Ryan said.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) fired back at Ryan:
I’d say that seniors in this country — and we’ve heard mention of them being the people who are worried about this Medicare — this health care bill — they ought to worry if we don’t do something. Because not only will we hear ideas of putting on catastrophic coverage only because that’ll save a lot of money, Paul Ryan has a proposal right now to say that Medicare recipients in the future ought to have just a little voucher, and then they can shop for their own insurance. They can be prudent shoppers.
He noted his hearing on the 39 percent insurance rate increases proposed by Anthem Blue Cross and said, “[C]ould you imagine seniors, if you have to go shopping with your voucher, and then you’re told, ‘Oh, by the way, this private policy that you’re going to have to buy just went up 39 percent.'”
President Obama has singled out Ryan for putting ideas to paper, but just nine lawmakers have signed on to his plan, which would lower the deficit thanks to the dramatic changes he proposes to entitlement reform.
TPMDC has been tracking Republican reactions to the Ryan plan, which leadership says won’t be their budget proposal, and clear divisions have emerged among the GOP.
Former top Congressional leaders say cutting Social Security and Medicare is the most logical option to cut the deficit. Rank-and-file members see merit in the Ryan plan though differ in several cases about whether they should use that approach or something similar to what then-President George W. Bush proposed in 2005. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told us he would sign on to Ryan’s plan as a better alternative to Bush’s idea.
And yesterday Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), a Blue Dog, praised Ryan’s stance. He said the deficit is the most important issue facing Congress and quoted Ryan as being “right.” He said members were trying to one-up each other on tough deficit talk.
“I welcome that competition, especially if it’s backed up votes, because it’s easy to talk tough on this. It’s harder to deliver,” he said.
“So we can face these problems, Mr. President. We can solve them with political will, but the talking points won’t do it. We’ve got to acknowledge the real questions,” he added.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told the group that Medicare could push the nation over a fiscal cliff.
“The idea that we don’t have to do anything about Medicare is utterly disconnected from reality,” he said.
There are strong signals the White House wants to really attack the problem once health care is out of the way, but the members of Obama’s new fiscal commission are split as well, with new co-chairman Alan Simpson saying that everything – including cuts – is on the table and newly named commission member Andy Stern of SEIU warning against the idea and saying it could bankrupt the country.
In a recent interview, Simpson said:
You have two choices with Social Security. You either raise the payroll tax, or decrease the benefits — or start ‘affluence testing.’ … The rest of it is B.S. And if the people are really ingesting B.S. all day long, their grandchildren will be picking grit with the chickens.
President Obama said yesterday he hopes leaders have the “courage” to make “some hard decisions about how entitlements work, because it’s just not realistic, nobody is going to have the guts to do it, then we’re in big trouble.”
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) also used the “courage” word, telling us at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he thinks Republicans should go full speed ahead with the Ryan plan.
Additional reporting by Rachel Slajda
