Paul Ryan Finds Strange Bedfellows on Medicare Premium Support

If you take President Obama out of the equation, there is a little bit of hope out there. The Wall Street Journal detailed Paul Ryan’s premium support plan. It’s a pretty decent proposal, especially considering he’s the only one out there with any plan to control spending on entitlement programs. He even has Democrats signing on.

Mr. Ryan understood the need for Democratic allies. So when Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon approached him last fall, Mr. Ryan readily agreed to compromise. Mr. Wyden wanted traditional Medicare to be an option under premium support, a provision urged by Democratic budget expert Alice Rivlin. He got it, though payments would be capped, not open-ended.

Democrats had pounced when Mr. Ryan put Medicare reform in the House budget. They insisted Republicans would end “Medicare as we know it.” The charge lost some of its sting after GOP candidates brushed the accusation aside and won special House elections last year in Nevada and New York. Democrats chastised Mr. Wyden, if merely to discourage other Democrats from joining Mr. Ryan. It worked—in the short run.

The embargo on premium support won’t last past the November election. Mr. Ryan says he’s talked to a “handful” of Democrats in the House and Senate who favor Medicare reform. “They’re afraid of getting treated like Ron Wyden,” Mr. Ryan says. “They’re not willing to talk [publicly] until after the election.”

John Gorman, a consultant who worked on health issues in the Clinton administration, says the “only thing that’s going to save this program is structural reform.” The Wyden-Ryan bill is “a reasonable compromise,” he says, and “there’s a lot of precedent for it.” One is the Medicare prescription drug program, passed in 2003, under which commercial providers compete for the business of seniors. As a result, its cost to the taxpayers is 41% less than projected. Another is Medicare Advantage, selected by 20% of seniors. “The beneficiaries are happy,” Mr. Gorman says.

Read the whole thing. I tend to stand with Senator Jim DeMint when it comes to not compromising with the wrong party, but perhaps we can convince them to vote the right way for a change. Who knows, maybe we can turn the tides on them and incrementally steer this big old ship of state back into the right direction. Heaven knows, the progressives have waited nearly a century to see their agenda fully realized. Turning it around won’t happen overnight. We have to start somewhere.

Tags: bipartisan, Medicare, Paul Ryan, Ron Wyden