Ryan Destroys Dems' Mediscare Dreams
Entitlements: Pity the poor Democrats. Here they were counting on scaring seniors about GOP plans to "destroy" Medicare when Rep. Paul Ryan teams up with a prominent Senate Democrat to offer a compromise reform.
From the White House on down, Democrats were wringing their hands this week about the bi-partisan Medicare reform plan offered up by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Their plan would shift Medicare from an open-ended health benefit to one in which the government provides a set amount of money for insurance. Seniors could choose from a variety of private, approved plans, as well as the traditional government-run Medicare.
The subsidy would be based on the second cheapest plan in an area, and if seniors wanted more expansive coverage, they'd have to pay the difference out of their own pockets. The reform would also cap the growth in Medicare.
Ryan had proposed this basic idea earlier in the year — only without the government-run Medicare option and with tougher cost controls — and was treated to barrage of ferocious attacks from Democrats who said it would kill seniors and who ran ads showing Republicans pushing grandma off a cliff.
But by making these changes and getting Wyden on board, Ryan has brilliantly managed to keep the essence of his reform while exposing the Democrats' attack plan for what it is: a crass effort to win votes by needlessly scaring seniors.
As one Democratic congressional aide told the New York Times, "this plan gives bipartisan political cover to Ryan and other Republicans against whom we have been waging a very successful political offensive."
Bi-partisan political cover? What ever happened to the Democrats' endless calls for bipartisanship and compromise?
The Ryan-Wyden plan puts Democrats in an awkward position in another way as well, because on the surface, it's very much like ObamaCare — enrollees get to choose from a menu of approved health plans with the government subsidizing the premiums. It even borrows the term "exchanges" and has a "public option," something liberals tried and failed to get included in ObamaCare.
As the Washington Post's liberal blogger and ObamaCare booster Ezra Klein put it, the Ryan-Wyden plan "is exactly — exactly! — how the Affordable Care Act works."
So if Democrats attack this plan, they'll now have to explain why ObamaCare is any better.
Not that this has stopped them from trying. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer immediately complained that "this plan would end Medicare as we know it" and that it's "the wrong way to reform Medicare."
Sure, the plan's similarity to ObamaCare can cut both ways — and some liberals have been quick to point a finger at Republicans, saying they favor ObamaCare for seniors but not for the rest of the country.
But the important point here is the direction these changes would take health care. Ryan is trying to move a decrepit, bankrupt socialized health plan toward the free market, where competition and consumer choice, not government dictates, work to keep prices down and quality high.
ObamaCare, on the other hand, tries to move the existing private health care system in the opposite direction — toward single-payer-style socialized medicine.
While we prefer Ryan's original proposal to his current one, it's to his credit that he realized the political need to produce a bi-partisan compromise. Wyden, too, deserves credit for his willingness to buck his party and sacrifice short-term political gain for much needed long-term reforms.
"We know there's a campaign ahead," Wyden said. "But at some point you've got to start paving the way for the future."
If only more Democrats thought like this when it comes to entitlement reform.
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