Paul Ryan Unveils Risky 2013 GOP Budget; Medicare Targeted, Major Revisions To U.S. Tax Code.

Congressman Paul Ryan's Risky 2013 Budget Blueprint Targets Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare Reform, Social Security, the U.S. Tax Code & Defunds Pres. Obama's Health Care Law i.e., Repeals it.





House G.O.P. Lays Down Marker With New Budget Plan

House Republicans, believing that worries over the deficit will trump affection for Medicare and other popular programs, unveiled a federal budget blueprint Tuesday morning that would cut deeply into domestic spending, transform the tax code and balance the budget by 2040.

Because tax revenues would remain unchanged, the deficit under the plan would be almost as deep as the red ink under President Obama’s feet in the fiscal year that begins in October. But by mid-decade it would drop precipitously, and over decades, significant changes to Medicaid and Medicare, the federal health care plans for the poor and the elderly, would help bring the budget into balance.

“We are here to offer Americans the chance to choose which future they want,” Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said, positing a choice between “a path to renew prosperity” and “the president’s path of debt and decline.”

Ultimately, the House budget is a political document, since the Senate has no intention of passing a budget of its own.

The plan amounts to a political bet, with high stakes wagered by both parties.

“This isn’t just matter of the House battling with the Senate or arm-wrestling with the president,” said J. D. Foster, a fiscal policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “For better or for worse, what they produce is going to be the standard for conservatives and Republicans going into this election season.”

Republicans believe voters will reward them for what one what member of the House Budget Committee, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, called a “bold and realistic” effort to transform and shrink government. Democrats are equally certain that because the plan fundamentally changes Medicare without raising taxes on the rich, they can pummel vulnerable Republicans.

On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began a “Millionaires over Medicare” campaign against 41 House Republicans who Democratic officials believe are vulnerable to the line of attack. “Under the leadership of Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Speaker John Boehner, House Republicans are again proposing a budget that ends the Medicare guarantee while protecting millionaires,” a memo from the group said. “It’s not only bad politics, it’s very bad policy.”

The budget plan embraces a Medicare plan similar to the one put forward by Mr. Ryan and Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, which would change the health plan from a guaranteed, fee-for-service government insurance program to a menu of private insurance plans subsidized by the government. Older Americans would be able to buy into the existing fee-for-service program, although annual expenditures would be capped.

The other flashpoint will be total spending on programs under Congress’s annual discretion. The budget will cap that spending at $1.028 trillion, the same level set by last year’s budget but $19 billion below the cap set in July after protracted negotiations to raise the nation’s statutory borrowing limit.

Democrats argue that the level in the new budget amounts to a broken promise that will lead to more strife as the House and Senate forge 12 spending bills this summer that will add up to two different totals. The House will aim for the $1.028 trillion cap in the new House budget while the Senate will aim for $1.047 trillion, the summer Budget Control Act cap.

“Ignoring the B.C.A. represents a breach of faith that will make it more difficult to negotiate future agreements,” two senior Democratic senators said Monday in a letter to Mr. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader.

“Rather than trying to tear down the B.C.A., we should be holding it up as an example of what can be accomplished if we are willing to set aside our differences and work hard to find bipartisan solutions to our nation’s challenges,” said the letter from Kent Conrad of North Dakota, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

House Republicans argue that additional cuts to both discretionary and entitlement spending are needed now to head off an automatic $110 billion in across-the-board cuts to defense and domestic programs in 2013. Even with the lower total, the House would still be above the $950 billion that domestic programs would reach if the across-the-board cuts take effect.

Under the House plan, the current $1.18 trillion deficit would fall to $797 billion in the coming fiscal year, compared with $977 billion under Mr. Obama’s plan. By 2016, the deficit would fall to $241 billion by Republican estimates. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that Mr. Obama’s budget would still have a $529 billion deficit in 2016.

The Ryan plan would accumulate $3.1 trillion in additional debt through 2022. The president’s would add $6.4 trillion, more than twice that total. The Republican budget cuts spending by $5 trillion more than the president’s plan, mandates the repeal of Mr. Obama’s health care law and assumes the elimination of the government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The tax code would be simplified to just two tax rates, 10 percent and 25 percent, with the closure of tax credits and deductions. The 35 percent corporate income tax would be lowered to 25 percent and the existing, worldwide system of taxing corporate profits would be changed to a territorial system in which only domestic profits were subject to United States corporate taxation. But the budget assumes revenues would stay consistent with revenues under the current individual and corporate tax codes.

Medicare would be turned into something like Mr. Obama’s health care plan for the uninsured, a subsidized set of private insurance plans, while Medicaid would be converted to fixed block grants to the states.

Bipartisan talks continue over a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction that would combine tax increases, spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. But hopes are dimming as both parties frame the election around their vision of deficit reduction.

“The idea of a grand bargain in 2012 is very hard to find credible,” Mr. Foster said. “To a large extent this election is about deciding what the grand bargain is supposed to look like.”


View Larger Map


Sources: CBS News, Fox News, NY Times, Google Maps

What's Good About The Senate Health Care Bill?

Making a Good Health Care Bill Even Better



Congress has been working hard for months to shape health insurance reform legislation that will bring down costs, expand coverage, increase accountability for insurers, and attack our mounting deficit. We got good news today on all those fronts, as fresh statements of support from the Small Business Majority, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association amongst others make clear.

We learned today from the Congressional Budget Office that this bill will reduce the deficit by $132 billion over the first decade, and more than $1 trillion in the decade after that. That makes it the biggest deficit-reduction effort in over a decade. All while expanding coverage to 30 million more Americans.

But bringing down the deficit and expanding coverage are only part of what insurance reform will do. And today the Senate introduced a package of changes to their bill that will make critical progress in ensuring competition, providing affordable choices, and holding the insurance companies accountable.

These improvements were bundled together in what’s called a manager’s amendment – and here are some of the highlights:

* Penalizing Insurers For Unfair Rate Hikes.

If insurers who arbitrarily jack up rates before the exchanges come online, they won’t be allowed to participate in them – they’ll miss the opportunity to compete for millions of new customers. That creates a strong incentive to keep premiums low before the exchanges are up and running in 2014.

* Making Sure Your Money Goes Toward Care, Not Administrative Costs.

Insurers will be required to spend a greater portion of your premium on the care you receive, rather than administrative costs or salaries. And if they don’t, they’ll have to pay you a rebate.

* Ending Discrimination Based On Pre-Existing Conditions.

Once the exchanges are open in 2014, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage because you have a pre-existing condition. In the meantime, the legislation immediately creates a high-risk pool where adults with pre-existing conditions can purchase affordable coverage. And for families with kids, the news is even better: insurers will immediately be prohibited from denying coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions. Period.

* Protecting Your Access To Care.

Lifetime limits on benefits will be banned right away.

* Annual Limits Will Also Be Banned Once The Exchanges Are Up And Running.

The manager’s amendment ensures that in the meantime, the use of annual limits will be tightly restricted until we can do away with this unfair practice entirely.

* More Help For Small Businesses.

The bill now includes additional help for small businesses. The health insurance tax credit for small businesses will now start in 2010, eligibility for the credit will be expanded, and small businesses will see improved purchasing power to make sure employees are getting good coverage at a good value.

* Choice And Competition.

Insurers will now offer multi-state plans under the supervision of the Office of Personnel Management. That means more choice and more competition in your state.

* Focusing On Quality, Not Quantity.

Health care providers will be reimbursed by Medicare for the quality of care, not just the quantity of tests and treatments. Shifting the way we reimburse for care is one of the most important things we can do to rein in spiraling health care costs – and it means a renewed focus on what’s best for the patient.

All told, it’s been a landmark day in the health insurance reform effort. There’s a lot more hard work to be done, and we’re confident that the Senate and House will continue to work hard to get this bill across the finish line and to the President’s desk. For the millions of Americans who don’t have coverage, for those who are struggling with costs or being mistreated by their insurance company, every day counts. It’s time for us to deliver.


Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Washington Post

Dems Praise Health Care Reform "Sell Out"...Lobbyists Win

Progressives react to compromise. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., explains her suggestion that unless the health reform compromise offers more competition, her caucus could vote against it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Health Care Reform Compromise or Sell-out?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dems praise tentative health bill compromise


President Barack Obama as well as Democratic liberals and moderates all found something to like Wednesday in an emerging compromise to expand the role of government in the nation's health care system, raising hopes inside the party that passage of overhaul legislation might be within reach after a struggle lasting decades.

The same plan drew critics, though — and the threat of more opponents once closely held details become widely known.

Obama hailed "a creative new framework that I believe will help pave the way for final passage of legislation and a historic achievement for the American people." He said, "I support this effort, especially since it's aimed at increasing choice and competition and lowering cost."

A provision opening Medicare to uninsured Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 drew praise from some liberals.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., called it "an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me who have been arguing for a single-payer system."

Howard Dean, the former party chairman and an advocate of a government-run insurance option, told CBS, "Using Medicare makes more sense than reinventing more bureaucracy."

The idea of a full-blown government-run insurance option, heatedly debated for months, would be jettisoned under the tentative agreement reached by Senate Democratic liberals and moderates and announced Tuesday night. In its place would be the expansion of Medicare, as well as new nationwide private plans to be run by the same agency that oversees the system that lawmakers use for themselves and their families.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., described the agreement as a significant step in the struggle to round up the votes needed to pass the broader overhaul legislation. The House has already passed its version, and Democrats are driving for a Senate vote before Christmas.

That would leave only a final compromise between the houses before legislation could go to Obama for his signature. Congress has spent months trying to deliver a bill to the White House that would expand coverage to millions who now lack it, ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and generally reduce the skyrocketing growth of medical spending nationwide.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who has vowed to fight any government-run insurance option, issued a statement saying he was "encouraged by the progress toward a consensus."

Lieberman's vote is one of 60 that Democrats would need to enact the legislation over unanimous Republican opposition, and he and Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., are viewed as among the shakiest supporters of the bill.

Two other senators in the same category praised different parts of the latest proposal.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the Medicare expansion could help small business.

"There are a lot of small business people who are between the ages of 55 and 64," she said. "If that were done (it) would provide some real relief to them."

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said she approved of the suggested national plans to be administered by the Office of Personnel Management. "OPM being the negotiator will help, I think, be able to bring the best product forward," she said.

According to several officials, the deal would maintain an existing federal health care program for children until 2015, when it would be folded into so-called national exchanges where consumers would purchase coverage.

Insurance companies would be required to spend 90 percent of their income from premiums on providing benefits.

Many officials declined to discuss details, heeding an admonition that if they did, the Congressional Budget office would feel compelled to release preliminary cost estimates that lawmakers prefer to receive secretly.

Thus, there was no word on the cost of purchasing Medicare coverage, as an example, in the years before 2014, when federal subsidies would become available for lower- and some middle-income individuals and families.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told reporters premiums would total about $7,600 annually until federal subsidies became available in 2014. That translated into more than $600 a month, far higher than the $96.40 paid by beneficiaries age 65 and up.

Despite the praise from Obama and others, there were critics across the political spectrum.

They included MoveOn.org., the liberal group, which issued a statement saying Democrats had "bargained away the heart of health care reform allowing conservative senators like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson to hold the process hostage and protect Big Insurance."

The Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center sent notices to lawmakers criticizing the emerging plan. Expanding Medicare to individuals 55 to 64 years old, it said, "would ultimately hurt patients by accelerating the financial ruin of hospitals and doctors across the country."

Sources: MSNBC

Pres. Obama Weighs "Opt Out" Public Option Plan...Choice & Competition

(Pres. Obama weighs "Opt Out" Public Option)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(Medicare and Public Option show similarities)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Google Maps