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Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) left; House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) right
The list of problems with Paul Ryan's House Republican budget plan last year was lengthy, but one glaring concern tended to dominate the political conversation. Under the GOP proposal, the existing Medicare program would be scrapped altogether, replaced with a voucher plan, with underfunded vouchers that would leave seniors with less care.
The plan became a political fiasco for Republicans, while giving Democrats new hope about taking back Congress. GOP officials eventually gave up on the proposal, and knew the fight this year would have to be different.
This leads us to the Ryan-Wyden plan for Medicare, originally unveiled in mid-December, but now part of the House Republican budget plan released this morning. It's ostensibly a bipartisan "compromise" -- Ryan seems to have moved away from last year's right-wing proposal, and reached an agreement with Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, on an alternative approach.
So, good news? A bipartisan deal on a major issue? Not really.
The Ryan-Wyden plan isn't identical to last year's proposal, but it's awfully similar in all the ways that count. The point is still to end Medicare's guaranteed benefits, and instead implement a voucher plan. As Medicare expert Paul Van de Water at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained yesterday, "Although billed as a kinder, gentler form of premium support, the Ryan-Wyden plan has the same basic features as earlier proposals."
As Van de Water noted, the Ryan-Wyden proposal would:
* Shift substantial costs to Medicare beneficiaries rather than protect them from cost increases -- in part because the value of the voucher would likely fail to keep pace with health care costs.
* Likely lead to the gradual demise of traditional Medicare by making the pool of Medicare beneficiaries smaller, older, and sicker -- and increasingly costly to cover.
* Produce few budgetary savings beyond those that the health reform law already calls for, since both plans have the same target growth rate for Medicare costs.
There will be plenty more on this as the new House GOP budget plan comes under closer scrutiny, but let's make sure the debate gets off on an accurate foot: Ryan-Wyden is not a Medicare "compromise," and the vast majority of Democrats, including the Obama White House, will never support it.
For more background on this, I'd recommend the overview Ezra published three months ago.
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Republicans are again trying to burden the middle-class and working Americans with the brunt of budget cuts, all while doing nothing for our long term debt. Why do these people think that simply repackaging the same toxic proposal one year after it went down in flames amidst public outcry will make a difference? The GOP's main economic platform is still the murder of Medicare and the elimination of millions of American seniors from the rolls of the insured. The Republican Party does not want to "fix" Medicare and the social safety net, they want to kill them all off, and the low-income citizens that rely on these programs. Voters will not tolerate such fear-mongering this election season. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Basically, Republicans have their mantra of
"If we keep repeating the lie often enough, it will become truth."
Continue subsidies to oil companies - Check (in billions of dollars)
Continue removing all women's rights - Check (down there... you know, the lady parts, using a probe)
Continue to eliminate Medicare - Check (or should I say Voucher?)
Continue to support big agriculture and the big chemical companies that are making millions from poisoning our soil and presenting us with pretty food with no food value and thus causing many of the degenerative diseases that increase our medical costs. You are what you eat, and the American diet is causing us to be too fat and yet under nourished.
Is someone primarying Wyden? If not, why not?
He's not up for reelection until 2016. He may be doing this stuff now because he's planning on retirement, I don't know, but if not he definitely needs to be replaced with someone who acts like a Democrat.
You wouldn't see Wyden doing this if he were running for office anytime in the next few years.
Democrats in Oregon are tiring of Wyden's act. He doesn't even have a residence in the state (his wife and kids lives in New York). He continually comes up with strange alternative plans, then refuses to discuss legislation on which he will actually have to vote--using the "alternative" to deflect attention away from discussions on things that will have real consequences.
Wyden is operating under the assumption that he has Oregon Dems in his pocket already and wants to increase his appeal to independents and crossover Republicans (of whom there are many, due to extremist tack taken by Republicans in Oregon). Should be run again in 2016, which I don't think he will, he's going to find that his assumption about Oregon Democrats' loyalty to him is misplaced.
This issue about having a Website with people’s names in relation to abortion rights is an outright radical extremist view. One which is very dangerous due to the mentality of these religious extremists and Republicans who will do nothing but harm to these people listed on this Website. These religious extremists and Republicans do not think properly in terms of a Democracy and the equality, rights and freedoms of all people. They can so easily rush to have a war so they can have their blood bath and murder and keep doing the same old things that are destructive and dark. Endlessly these radical extremists and Republicans want to dictate on how someone should live their life and it does nothing but bring despair to people. Now instead of thinking of better solutions to help people they do not. But they do keep saying – Do as I say and not what I do. However, the actions of these Republicans and radical extremists speak volumes and their actual words are meaningless.
Why are Republicans so determined to make my granny suffer when she gets ill in her old age? Ron Wyden should be ashamed of himself.
Read the details. No one over 55 are included. So, I'd think granny is safe
If they really want to reform medicare they have to start with how reimbursement occurs. Right now doctors get paid for doing tests, and that coupled with end of life measures to keep people alive account for the majority of expenditures. what we need to do is establish standards of care for different diseases and age related treatment guidelines. Lawyers and offspring have to be reasonable!
A good example of testing abuse is giving a 100 yr old woman a pap smear, and that is not uncommon. The reality is older people are going to have a body that is aging in different ways, and are going to have things wrong. But do we want them on 10 different medications at once? Or replace knees on an 88 yr old? Or keep a terminal ill patient alive on a vent @ $5000. a day We need to aduit the medicare program and stop the doctor abuse of medicine. We can only do that if we can have an intelligent conversation about it without calling it death panels or we are not taking care of our elderly if we don't give them every test known
Very good post. "Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him/ That would upon the rack of this tough world/ Stretch him out longer." King Lear, V, iii, 814-16.
This is simply long form propaganda. By repeatedly stating the lie over and over it becomes more accepted.
We can look to the Occupy movement for a rebuttal. Who gains the most? The 1% get the lion's share of tax breaks and the ones with the least to lose lose the most. We lose health care. Our old and our young, the ones who can afford it the least lose the most.
The biggest loser? Us.
The biggest winner? The very rich and the Corporations, who are of course one and the same.
i'm not one of those people who consider any attempt at bi-partisanship a sell-out. most of the landmark legislation in this country's history was the product of compromise and consensus. however, that required legislators who were honest and reasonable. ryan is neither. if he had his druthers, this country would be on the road to revolution. you can't disenfranchise the huge majority of citizens for the benefit of the very few. eventually, even the dimwits realize they've been had. the only problems ryan is interested in addressing is the tax bills of his favored class. fdr saved this country from revolution once. lbj brought even more into the economic bounty. ryan wants them all kicked back out. wyden is a damned fool if he can't see that.
Jim ... There are many Democrats in Oregon (including myself) who believe that the first five words of your last sentence sum things up nicely.
Wyden is my senator. I've supported him in the past, but I'm dumbfounded as to his motives on this Medicare thing. I've let him know via phone calls and email, and it's my impression that he's taking a lot of heat from constituents. He's sticking to his guns.
Is Wyden a blue dog dem?If he is,then it's the same as two republicans compromising.If not, then he's an idiot and should be defeated in his next run.How could any dem.work to kill medicare?Now REAL democrats have another war to fight,the War on Medicare,along with War on Women and the War on the Middle Class.The republicans can disguise their intentions all they want,but a wolf in sheep clothing is still a wolf.
The hogs are running the farm. Farmer Ted was delicious. After they eat the last of the corn they will have to turn on each other. Finally the last hog will cry about not having anything else left to devour. We still have time to fence in the hogs. They are the ones who are fat and happy and eying you hungrily if you did not already know.
There will be a serious financial issue with Medicare in the future. However, the question is whether we allow private enterprise to purportedly deliver lower cost better services or we socialize medicine. We have 5 decades for a track record for private enterprise and the results are not good. Why would we continue to utilize the same system that has been in place when it has failed? Dems are going to have to move the voters to a point where they can accept a national health care system like Canada's system. Any further compromises on Medicare that move it toward a private enterprise system are doomed to fail. It is just a question of when it will fail. Dems need to move the system away from the private enterprise model. If Republicans want to change the system, Dems should not be a party to that change or they will regret it much like the end of Glass Stegall.
Sen. Wyden...a DEMOCRAT is co=sponsoring this abomination??? A DEMOCRAT????
Did he fall and suffer a traumatic brain injury?? Does he REALLY think this would be good for his fellow Oregonians?? What hallucinogenic is he ON??