GOP Congressman Admits Romney/Ryan Would ‘End Medicare As We Know It’

By Sy Mukherjee/Think Progress

During the fourth and final debate between incumbent Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) and his Democratic challenger, Tammy Duckworth, the Republican Congressman openly admitted that he and his GOP colleagues want to “end Medicare as we know it.”

Walsh defended the Romney/Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program, which would provide retirees with adepreciating premium support credit to purchase private insurance or traditional Medicare. Duckworth pointed out that Obamacare reforms extend the solvency of the Medicare program by a decade — and reminded Walsh of his unabashed support for Paul Ryan’s budget, which guts the core Medicare entitlement. And Walsh admitted that Duckworth’s assessment of Ryan’s plan was right:

DUCKWORTH: [Congressman Walsh] voted three times for the Ryan budget which will end Medicare as we know it. That is not my comment — that is the Wall Street Journal that says it will end Medicare as we know it. He wants to put seniors the street with a voucher. And he wants to go even further than the Ryan budget. He wants to eliminate the prescription drug benefit. Do you think that’s going to save Medicare? You want seniors to pay more for Medicare? You want seniors to pay more for prescription drugs? That’s not a single senior has come up to me and said that.

EDDIE ARRUZA (MODERATOR): Quickly, Mr. Walsh, respond.

WALSH: Ms. Duckworth says end Medicare as we know it. What the Chicago Tribune and every other responsible person has said if we don’t end it as it is, it’s going end all by itself — we won’t preserve it for future generations. We have to do that.

Watch it:

Wary of public backlash and the overwhelming popularity Medicare enjoys, Republican candidates across the country — including the Romney/Ryan ticket — describe their proposal as a way to strengthen Medicare for future generations. Last night, Walsh publicly confirmed that it is actually a fundamental restructuring of the entitlement and a raw deal for seniors.

Paul Ryan’s Original Medicare Plan Ends Medicare, Period

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

In April of 2011, after Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan had been House Budget Chair for only a few months, he convinced nearly the entire House GOP caucus to vote for a laissez-faire budget resolution that would slash education, raise taxes on the middle class, and destroy Medicaid’s promise to provide health care to the most vulnerable Americans. Like his running mate Mitt Romney’s tax plan, the Ryan Plan also combined austerity for the poor and the middle class with large tax cuts for the rich.

The Ryan Plan that passed the House in 2011 is most famous, however, for its multiple step plan to phase out Medicare. Let us say that again so we are perfectly clear about what the Ryan Plan does to Medicare. It does not just “end Medicare as we know it” and it certainly does not “reform” Medicare.” The Ryan Plan simply ends Medicare, although it admittedly takes some time for it to achieve this goal.

Stage One, Vouchers: Ten years after the Ryan Plan takes effect, it eliminates traditional Medicare entirely and replaces it with a voucher system that seniors can use to by a private health plan. Although this proposal does produce small savings for government when it takes effect, it does so by massively increasing the out-of-pocket costs to American seniors. According to the Congressional Budget Office, total health expenditures for a typical 65-year-old “would be almost 40 percent higher with private coverage under the [Ryan] plan than they would be with a continuation of traditional Medicare” in the first year that the Ryan Plan is in effect.

Stage Two, Phase Out: After eliminating traditional Medicare, the Ryan Plan then begins to gradually phase out the Medicare program. Because Ryan vouchers do not grow in value each year at a rate that keeps up with the rising cost of health care, they effectively lose value every single year. According to the CBO, “[b]y 2080, Medicare would be cut 76 percent below its projected size under current policies.” In other words, a child born in 2015 would receive less than one-quarter of the Medicare resources that today’s seniors enjoy when that child became eligible for Medicare. And that child’s Ryan vouchers would continue to lose value during each year of their retirement.

It’s worth noting that, by 2012, the original Ryan Medicare Plan proved so politically unpopularthat even Paul Ryan recognized he could no longer publicly support it. Ryan’s 2012 backed away significantly from his original goal of phasing out Medicare. Nevertheless, the original Ryan Plan remains the purest reflection of Ryan’s vision for the country, before that vision collided headlong into electoral defeat.

The immediate impact of Paul Ryan’s original vision is a massive, 40 percent spike in new retirees’ health expenditures, followed by gradually increasing costs for the rest of those retirees’ lives. And because the Ryan vouchers never stop losing value, they will eventually become practically worthless, providing no meaningful assistance whatsoever to seniors struggling to pay their medical bills.

Romney’s Attack On Newt: I Pledge To Get Rid Of Medicare Faster

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s campaign is stepping up their attacks against current GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich today over his criticism of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Medicare privatization plan. In a press release to reporters, Gail Gitcho, Romney’s communications director, charged, “Speaker Gingrich’s attack on Paul Ryan’s plan as ‘right-wing social engineering’ – and then denying his own attack before doubling down on it – is the kind of Washington politics that Americans are tired of.”

Romney backers John Sununu and former Sen. Jim Talent also insisted on a press call with reporters that Romney “recognized right away the features of Ryan’s plan” and embraced it. They portrayed Gingrich’s Medicare proposal as not a “substantive change” from the current system and again slammed the former speaker for his criticism of the Ryan proposal.

But as much as Romney may hope to out gun Gingrich on Medicare privatization, both candidates have backed away slightly from Ryan’s proposal, but share the same policy objectives: to reduce federal expenditures in Medicare by capping the amount seniors will have to spend for traditional Medicare or private insurance, irrespective of actual health care costs.

For months, Romney refused to fully embrace Ryan’s plan. “As president, Romney’s own plan will differ, but it will share those objectives,” a September campaign proposal stated. He followed up in October with, “You have a program like Paul Ryan has proposed, which says we’re going to give people vouchers to let them choose among private plans. I would not at the same time would want to remove the option for people who have standard Medicare.” His proposal reflects this view.

Gingrich — who famously proclaimed that he would like to see Medicare “wither on the vine” — has supported Medicare privatization since at least 1995 and had said that he would have voted for Ryan’s plan. In an effort to limit the conservative blowback following his comments on Meet the Press, Gingrich even proposed kick-starting premium support “this year“: “I would offer on a voluntary basis, a supplement plan, a voucher—I wouldn’t call it a voucher—but some kind of support plan this year,” Gingrich told conservatives.

Romney promises if elected he’ll voucherize Medicare

By Andrew Beatty/Raw Story

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney laid out his vision for “simpler, smaller and smarter” government Friday, vowing to raise the retirement age and partly privatize US seniors’ healthcare.

Unveiling his plan to trim the US deficit by $500 billion by 2016, Romney said he would also cut bureaucracy and change the constitution to make balanced budgets compulsory.

I’m committed to making government simpler, smaller and smarter, it is not only good for the economy it is a moral imperative,” the former management consultant told a gathering of conservative activists in Washington.

“For the next generation of retirees we should slowly raise the retirement age,” Romney said without giving further details.

The normal retirement age in the United States currently is 65, and 67 for people born after 1959.

Romney also waded into the divisive issue of Medicare, advocating partial privatization of the highly popular system that provides health care to seniors and the disabled.

“Medicare should not change for anyone who is in the program or who is about to be in it, we should honor the commitments we have made to our seniors,” he said.

But he added: “Tomorrow’s seniors should have the freedom to choose what their health coverage looks like. Younger Americans today, when they turn 65 should have a choice between traditional Medicare and other private health care plans.”

Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care.”

Romney, who leads Republican polls in some states, but elsewhere is lagging behind conservative favorite Herman Cain, also rattled off a series of cuts long relished by the right.

The former Massachusetts governor threw his weight behind calls to cut and merge government departments responsible for trade, insisting “we have got to cut the size of the federal workforce.”

That included merging the US Trade Representative’s office, the Commerce Department, the International Trade Commission and other trade bodies, although he did not say which would disappear.

“Too many chefs not only spoil the broth, they make it inedible and prohibitively expensive,” he said.

Despite a largely tepid reception from the audience, Romney earned cheers for promising to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, a measure Romney claims would save $95 billion in 2016.

Romney earlier promised to cut government posts, slash funding for the arts, public broadcasting, family planning and passenger rail services, while giving states more budget power and launching a “stem-to-stern” review of government departments.

The plan was given short shrift by Democrats, who accused Romney of trying to privatize Medicare.

“The fundamental challenge of our time is how we rebuild our economy so that hard work and responsibility are rewarded and that economic security is restored for the middle class,” said Ben LaBolt a spokesman for Obama’s reelection campaign.

“Mitt Romney’s proposal takes us in exactly the opposite direction: it places a great burden on the middle class and the elderly, and instead of asking all Americans to do their fair share it continues to offer special breaks for large corporations, millionaires and billionaires.”

Rep. Allen West Accuses Wavering GOP Leadership Of Lacking ‘Moral Courage’ If Ryan Plan Is Dropped

By Scott Keyes




As the GOP encounters increasing division among its own ranks over the Ryan budget, Republican leaders are openly considering abandoning their plan to end Medicare. Indeed, multiple Republican senators have expressed significant reservations or outright opposition to the plan.
As a result, many on the conservative wing of the Republican Party are speaking out against the GOP leadership’s handling of the issue. One such man is Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL).
ThinkProgress interviewed West prior to his town hall meeting this week in Riviera Beach. We asked the Florida congressman if he was worried about his party’s leadership wavering on the Ryan budget. West noted that while he stands “on [his] own convictions and [his] own principles,” he worried that Republican leaders might not possess the “moral courage” to reform Medicare and Social Security:

KEYES: Shifting gears slightly to the Ryan budget in Congress, there were some reports last week that some of the GOP leaders – Dave Camp – of the House Ways and Means Committee might be backing off, saying he doesn’t want to bring it up. A number of senators were saying that they weren’t wanting to support it, like Senator Portman, Senator Alexander. Are you worried that the leadership might be wavering on this?
WEST: No, I don’t, because I stand on my own convictions and my own principles, and if they don’t have the moral courage to understand that we’re dealing with a very serious situation – look the Medicare trustees report just came out Friday. It said in 2024 it’s over for Medicare and 12 years later it’s over for Social Security. So, we can continue to run around and lie to the American people and tell them the things we think that they want to hear just so we think that we can stay in political power or position, but what does that do for the future legacy of our country? What does that do for my 18 and my 14 year old daughters?

Watch it:


GOP leaders have seen disastrous polling on the plan to end Medicare and the resulting town hall backlash after its passage in the House. They are trying to prevent their party from being electorally crucified on the cross of Ryan’s budget. However, if Tea Party congressmen like West, who were elected in droves last year and paved the way for John Boehner to become Speaker of the House, have their way, it will be extraordinarily difficult for Republican leaders to walk away from the Ryan plan.

UPDATEAt a town hall the following day in Pompano Beach, West was asked about deporting Muslims. While he didn't agree to that, he did say that "one of the problems we have in this country is that political correctness will end up killing us." The exchange was captured on Youtube. Watch it:

Bedlam Erupts At Town Hall In Orlando As GOP Rep. Defends Ending Medicare, Tax Breaks For Rich

By Scott Keyes

During a town hall in Orlando earlier today, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) faced a barrage of questions from outraged constituents about the Republican budget. The Orlando Sentinel accurately described the scene as “bedlam.”

For nearly an hour, Webster was peppered with one question after another about his support for ending Medicare, his desire to see tax breaks for the wealthy extended, and his vote to repeal health care reform, including its protections for people with preexisting conditions. For his part, Webster didn’t just avoid the questions by resorting to talking points, as most politicians commonly do. On numerous occasions, Webster simply declined to give an answer to contentious questions altogether, moving on to take a new question instead.

Questions critical of the Ryan budget were met by applause from nearly the entire audience. Watch highlights from the town hall:

Webster is the latest congressman to face a town hall backlash after his vote in favor of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan. Provisions of the Republican budget, whichends Medicare, slashes Medicaid, and extends tax breaks for the wealthy, is opposed by strong majorities of Americans, including over 7 in 10 Republican voters as well.

Last week, ThinkProgress reported from a town hall in Milton, Wisconsin, where Rep. Ryan’s plan to extend tax breaks for the wealthy earned the congressman a loud chorus of boos from his own constituents. Similar backlash among voters to the Republican budget has played out for other congressmen across the country, includingReps. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), Charlie Bass (R-NH), Chris Gibson (R-NY), Robert Dold (R-IL), and Sean Duffy (R-WI).

Following today’s Orlando town hall, ThinkProgress spoke with some of the attendees to get their reaction. One constituent, Tamecka Pierce, asked Webster about what would happen to people like her with major preexisting conditions under the Republican budget. Pierce had to undergo months of chemotherapy to deal with systemic lupus and the resulting kidney damage. Pierce expressed disappointment in Webster. “I don’t think I really got a response,” she told ThinkProgress in an interview. She expressed major concern about the Republican budget, noting that “had it not been for Medicaid, I would be dead.” Watch it:

UPDATEIf you record video of your representative’s town hall that you think we would be interested in, please email it to us.

UPDATEOrlando Sentinel posted additional video of the "bedlam." See it here.