Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget proposal for fiscal year 2013 would seek to repeal the Affordable Care Act and again contains a major overhaul of Medicare via competition and premium support.
Tagged "The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal," Ryan's plan attempts to take on the largest driver of federal budget growth: the cost of Medicare. While it broadly resembles the Ryan-Wyden plan released late last year it cuts that proposal's Medicare spending ceiling from gross domestic product (GDP) plus 1 percent to GDP plus 0.5 percent in an effort to wring additional savings out of the system.
"The unchecked growth of the Medicare program cannot be sustained, and the government's continued reliance on price controls will only make matters worse," Ryan wrote in his report. "Washington's failure to advance structural reforms threatens not just he affordability of coverage for seniors but also the security that comes with knowing that coverage can be obtained at any price."
In all, the Ryan proposal would cut more than $770 billion from Medicare and other health programs, while instituting a competitive bidding process by which seniors would purchase Medicare coverage from among a host of options that include both traditional Medicare and plans offered by private insurers. Seniors would be needs tested and would receive federal subsidies to help pay for their Medicare plan.
The White House and Congressional Democrats panned the proposal as more of the same from Ryan, one that would end the current Medicare program. Further, opponents suggest, the proposal would shift an increasingly large amount of overall healthcare costs onto seniors.
In his daily briefing of the White House press corps on Tuesday, President Barack Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney said: "It is still a proposal that creates a voucher system for Medicare and thereby ends Medicare as we know it. Contrary to some assessments that somehow by calling it Medicare it still remains Medicare, we're going to stand by the fact that Medicare as we know it would be ended by this program."
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), in an interview with CBS News, said the proposal would make it harder for seniors to get the healthcare they need.
"Paul Ryan wants to privatize Medicare," Durbin said. "At the end of the day, those seniors who are not healthy and can't buy health insurance today will find it almost impossible to do so under Paul Ryan's plan."
While Ryan noted he believes the Republican presidential candidates would endorse his plan, the flagging campaign of Newt Gingrich was first to jump on the bandwagon.
"Paul Ryan represents a serious adult effort to get back to a balanced budget and save our children and grandchildren from drowning in debt," Gingrich said in an interview yesterday with Fox News Radio.
Mitt Romney also voiced his support for the plan, praising the Ryan budget by calling it "a bold step toward putting our nation back on the track to fiscal sanity," according to a statement released by his campaign.
Ron Paul, meanwhile, reiterated his criticism of Ryan's plan from before, noting that he doesn't feel the proposal goes far enough to cut spending and that it balances the budget too far in the future.
Rick Santorum's campaign also said Ryan's plan doesn't go far enough. Santorum has advocated in the campaign the need for immediate changes in Medicare, not changes that take effect years down the road.