WASHINGTON (AP) – The incoming Republican chairman of the House Budget committee says he’s going to draft a fiscal blueprint to balance the budget in 10 years and call for transforming Medicare into a system that places future retirees in private health insurance plans – much like outgoing chairman Paul Ryan did.
Rep. Tom Price is a Georgia surgeon from the same district Newt Gingrich once represented. Price says the so-called premium support plan for Medicare, which would provide voucher-like subsidies for seniors to buy health insurance instead of the fixed benefits offered by the current system, is “settled policy” among Republicans controlling the House.
Price told reporters that top Republicans haven’t decided whether to use a special filibuster-proof budget bill to repeal so-called Obamacare or cut spending elsewhere in the budget.