CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Dec. 14, 2011 – 11:20 p.m.
Ryan-Wyden Plan May Start Medicare Debate
By Emily Ethridge, CQ Staff
The House Budget chairman and a liberal Democratic senator have teamed up to offer a proposal to overhaul Medicare while keeping the traditional program in place.
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“Before the partisan attacks begin to escalate and the 2012 election ads start to air, we are outlining a plan for how Democrats and Republicans can work together to ensure that American retirees — now and forever — have quality, affordable health insurance,” Ryan and Wyden said. Wyden is a member of the Senate Budget, Finance and Aging committees.
The plan would create a Medicare marketplace beginning in 2022, and anyone currently age 55 and older would not see a change to the current system. Under the proposal, seniors would choose between traditional Medicare or approved private insurance plans that the lawmakers say would offer equally comprehensive coverage.
The plan marks a departure from Ryan’s budget proposal (
Democrats and a number of seniors’ groups slammed that idea, saying it would end the government’s guarantee of health coverage for seniors and the disabled by limiting access and increasing beneficiaries’ costs.
The new proposal tracks more closely to a plan worked on by Alice Rivlin, a Democrat who was budget director for President Bill Clinton, and former Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M. That plan also preserved traditional Medicare while moving to a premium support system, which Rivlin has said many Democrats could back.
In the Wyden-Ryan proposal, seniors would receive a set payment from the government to purchase insurance, with the amount varying based on the actual cost of each policy. The second-least-expensive plan, including traditional Medicare, would set the benchmark for coverage each year.
Some seniors with higher incomes would pay an increased share of their premiums in the new marketplace, the lawmakers said.
The proposal would also add catastrophic health care coverage, with a limit on out-of-pocket costs, to Medicare for the first time.
Spending Caps
If the plan did not slow Medicare’s cost increases, the growth of federal spending for the program would be capped at the gross domestic product plus 1 percent, plus inflation, beginning in 2023.
The plan also would allow some small businesses to offer the value of the company’s contribution to health care so individuals could buy their own insurance coverage, with the goal of smoothing the transition from employer-sponsored insurance to Medicare.
Ryan-Wyden Plan May Start Medicare Debate
The lawmakers said the plan would address the issue of low-income seniors who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid by encouraging plans specializing in high-cost enrollees to participate in the new network.
There are currently more than 9 million so-called dual eligibles, who are among the sickest and most expensive to cover. Those enrollees would be able to pick from the same plans as other beneficiaries, adjust their premium support payments to reflect their health needs, and be held harmless from premium increases.
The lawmakers also called for improving the traditional Medicare program by replacing the physician payment reimbursement formula and combining deductibles for Medicare Parts A and B.
“We are two members of Congress who firmly believe in the iron-clad guarantee of the Medicare program, and this belief has informed our understanding of the unacceptable risk posed to our seniors’ health and retirement security if we do not come together as a country and take action to save and strengthen Medicare,” Ryan and Wyden said.
Niels Lesniewski contributed to this story.