Paul Ryan: Republican Party has secret plan to cut Medicare

[ProSense]

Paul Ryan: Republican Party has secret plan to cut Medicare

by Jed Lewison

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-FitzWalkerStan) says the GOP has a secret plan to cut Medicare:

In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, the Wisconsin lawmaker and chairman of the House Budget Committee said the House Republicans' budget proposal for the 2012 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 will propose fundamental changes to Medicare and Medicaid, the giant health care programs that cover 100 million Americans and whose combined costs rival the defense budget.

Last year, Ryan proposed eliminating the current Medicare program and replacing it with vouchers, but now:

Ryan offered no specifics, saying details are still being hashed out.

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Speaking of demagoguery, wasn't it Paul Ryan's party that attacked Medicare cost savings in the health care reform bill as "death panels." Wasn't it the GOP that said Democrats wanted to kill your grandma? And given that track record, aren't you at least a little bit suspicious when Paul Ryan says the GOP is ready to embrace big things?

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So the same guy who voted for TARP and Bush's Medicare prescription drug coverage bill, the same guy who won't put military budget cuts on the table, and the same guy who wants to extend about $4 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade says he's ready to "tackle the problem." Except he won't say what it is that he's going to do. But the GOP is going to lead with their chin. Someday.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The question is whether the democrats in the Senate would block that cut

either in an original funding bill or a reconciliation bill.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. See what I mean?

http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15124

[ProSense]

8. Warner reminds me of Bayh, but

leave it to the WSJ to try and spin anything in favor of the GOP. Bloomberg: Warner Says More Stopgap Budgets Could Harm Market (Transcript)

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WARNER: I don’t think a voucher program makes a lot of sense around the Medicare issue. I think that, you know, it’s strangely reminiscent of some of the earlier attempts to privatize Social Security. I’m not sure that’s where we ought to be headed.

I do think we’ve got to realize that we can’t spend 16 percent, 17 percent of our GDP on health care and most of our competitors in the world are spending single digits or 10 percent or 11 percent. We’ve got to drive down health care costs, not just in Medicare, but across the board, and that means payment system reform, it means trying to make sure that we avoid some of the duplication, it means using, frankly, a lot of more administrative simplifications.

There are tools out there, but we’ve got to go even further than where we went in the health care bill.

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WARNER: I think the frame of where - and this is just me speaking - this is not by any means the Democrats’ position. But some of this is just math. There were 16 workers for every retiree in 1950. There are 3 workers for every retiree -

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WARNER: So I think raising - a slow, gradual raising of the retirement age, as they suggested, two years over a 40-year timeframe, anybody that’s viewing that’s less than 35 years old, don’t have to worry a bit. And, frankly, most folks under 35 don’t think they’re going to get Social Security.

But I do think that you’re going to have to raise the cap, in terms of how much is taxable, and I think at some point folks maybe in the absolute top quintile years out could see less increase in benefits than others.

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He's not talking about cuts to Medicare, but ways to bring down health care cost. He also supports raising the income cap for Social Security, but given that he supports raising the retirement age, his overall position on SS sucks. There are likely a handful of Democrats like him, but like he said, he's speaking for himself.

[LiberalEsto]

2. Why don't they just exterminate us all and get it over with?

This is the kind of slow torture you find in sick people who, as children, pulled the wings and legs off insects to prolong the agony.

[atreides1]

3. They can't exterminate all of us

They have to have serfs and peasants to serve them...and their corporate masters.

[Worried senior]

7. Death Panels

They ranted and raved about Obama's death panels. We won't need them. Once they take care of SS and Medicare we either make it on our own or die. One way to cut the deficite.

[no limit]

4. I doubt that. Not this close to the election, they would have to be even dumber than they are now

atleast not on medicare, medicaid maybe. And only way they could was if democrats and Obama went along with it.

[ProSense]

5. "And only way they could was if democrats and Obama went along with it."

This is the House, and they can do it without the support of Democrats. In fact, they're doing it their way on a range of issues, which have been voted down in the Senate.

[no limit]

10. But what they do in the house doesn't really matter at this point

they have been saying they are willing to cut social security, medicare, and madicaid for a long time now without giving any specifics. This really is nothing new. And if they want to commit political suicide I say they go for it. But they are smarter than that. That's why things like food stamps and heating assistance for the poor are getting cut while millionaires get huge tax breaks. And the democrats seem more than eager to help them with this.

So I think it would be far more worthwhile to actually concentrate on what is actually happening instead of being distracted by what the republicans wish they could do.

[ProSense]

11. Yes, it does matter.

People need to see them for the extremists they are by their actions. Polls may show that the public disagrees with these cuts, but the problem has always been that, without concrete actions, Republicans and their media allies have been able to spin away their rhetoric.

[Indydem]

9. Where exactly are you getting that $4 trillion number?

Are you talking about all the tax cuts? Because no one even talked about stopping the tax cuts for those under $250k.

Extending the tax cuts for the top 2% is $680b.

[craigmatic]

12. It's not a secret they plan to get Obama to do their dirty work. That's why we need to win back

congress.