"The Ryan
budget." Them's fightin' words. Democrats have
long railed against the Republican blueprint by Mitt
Romney's 2012 running mate, but they never really had
to worry about stopping it. They may have to take it
a little more seriously, now that Republicans have
won control of the U.S. Senate and still hold the
House. But if they play their cards better than they
did in this year's midterm elections, this may just
give them a renewed line of attack for 2016.
The House keeps passing Ryan budgets each year but so
long as Democrats controlled the Senate, the
proposals never really stood a chance of
implementation, or debate, or even headline-grabbing
veto threats. The last version of the plan by Budget
Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin passed in
April. It advocated about $5 trillion in federal
spending cuts over a decade by revamping and
constraining the growth of Medicare, and cutting
healthcare, food stamps, education and farm spending.
While Americans like concepts such as fiscal
responsibility, polls since 2012 suggested there
could be a backlash to aspects of Ryan's plans,
especially to fiddling with Medicare.
Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top
Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in an
interview Friday that when budget season rolls around
early next year, "it's kind of hard for
Republicans in Congress to turn to their voters and
say, 'You know that Ryan Republican budget we always
pushed for? We weren't really serious.' So I think
there will be tremendous pressure for Republicans to
pass a virtually identical version, and with
Republicans in control of the Senate it's hard to see
how they duck that issue. Bottom line is, they're now
firing with real budget bullets and I do believe
their budget does great harm to lots of people in
this country. It's going to be a wake-up call to the
public."
Some of the key areas of partisan contention in any
upcoming budget debate:
Medicare
Ryan's plan shifted Medicare, which provides health
services to seniors, to a premium support model. It
assumed the creation of an insurance exchange in 2024
where seniors could purchase insurance. Those who
enrolled in the Medicare program before 2024 would
have entered the existing fee-for-service model.
Under that new system, seniors would choose between
purchasing a private plan through the exchange or
traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Seniors would
receive subsidies to offset the cost of purchasing
private coverage through the exchange. The plan would
also institute means testing within Medicare
programs, whereby wealthier seniors would receive a
lower subsidy amount and low-income seniors would
receive more. Insurers offering coverage through the
Medicare exchange would have to offer insurance to
all beneficiaries choosing to enroll in a private
plan. The plan also assumes that the retirement age
for Medicare would be increased to match the current
Social Security retirement age of 67. Democrats have
used the proposal in recent campaigns to accuse
Republicans of undermining a promise to America's
seniors and especially hurting those of modest means.
