GOP Budget Alert: Fact Checking Chairman Ryan (R-WI) on CNBC

April 5, 2011

"We are saving Medicare…We are saving these programs."

– House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) on CNBC this morning

The American people won't be fooled by your rhetoric, Mr. Chairman. The GOP budget eliminates guaranteed benefits for seniors under Medicare and slashes support for seniors, children, and Americans with disabilities on Medicaid.

From Ezra Klein in The Washington Post:

Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare and Paul Ryan's plan for Medicaid rely on the same bait-and-switch: They use a reform to disguise a cut.
In Medicare's case, the reform is privatization. The current Medicare program would be dissolved and the next generation of seniors would choose from Medicare-certified private plans on an exchange. But that wouldn't save money. In fact, it would cost money…
In Medicaid's case, the reform is block-granting. Right now, the federal government shares Medicaid costs with the states. That means their payments increase or decrease with Medicaid's actual rate of spending. Under a block grant system, that'd stop. They'd simply give states a lump sum at the beginning of the year and that'd have to suffice. And if a recession hits and more people need Medicaid or a nasty flu descends and lots of disabled beneficiaries end up in the hospital with pneumonia? Too bad.
In both cases, what saves money is not the reform. It's the cut. For Medicare, the cut is that the government wouldn't cover the full cost of the private Medicare plans, and the portion they would cover is set to shrink as time goes on. In Medicaid, the block grants are set to increase more slowly than health-care costs, which is to say, the federal government will shoulder a smaller share of the costs than it currently does…
What Ryan has here isn't so much a plan to control spending as a plan to cut spending, whatever the consequences.

Americans oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, but House Republicans just aren't listening. It's time for the GOP to stop punishing American families and work with Democrats to create jobs, strengthen the middle class, and responsibly reduce the deficit.