If tea party Republicans care about keeping Medicare intact, they are going to be surprised – and very angry – by what the deficit reduction plan approved by House Republicans would do to Medicare. What House Republicans have approved is nothing like what was promised by its architect, Republican House Budget Committee chairman Paul D. Ryan.
“Starting in 2002,” Ryan promised in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, “new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health-care program that members of Congress enjoy.”
Ryan repeated that elevated promise on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “For future generations,” he said, “what we are proposing is a personalized Medicare, a Medicare system that works exactly like the health care I have as a member of Congress and federal employees have.”
Based on an impartial analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and two other analyses, Ryan’s promise is not just empty – it’s a political hoax. Ryan’s plan would change Medicare from an entitlement program that provides fixed medical services to a voucher program that would offer government subsidies to seniors to help them purchase private insurance.
The CBO’s analysis shows that those subsidies would not come close to buying what Medicare now provides. Americans on Medicare under the Ryan plan would pay $6,400 to $7,000 more per year than they would pay under Medicare as it now exists. That margin of difference would continue to grow, shifting an ever larger portion of the cost from Medicare to the enrollees.