It appears that the Republicans have decided they need a little more than just a new messaging strategy on their Vouchercare plan. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has now said that he'd be open to making the plan optional.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday that he is open to reforming Medicare in a way that would still leave traditional fee-for-service Medicare as an option for future seniors.
Such an option-based reform could eventually emerge as a compromise way to prevent Medicare’s projected bankruptcy in 13 years.
Ryan, speaking at a policy discussion hosted by The Hill and sponsored by No American Debt, an advocacy group, said that he has all along been open to an option version of his controversial Medicare plan, which Democrats have seized upon as a campaign issue.
“I have always said all along all of those ideas are ideas we should be considering when it comes to legislation,” he said. “When you are down in the details, should there be a fee-for-service option alongside premium support ... they are all good ideas.
“We didn’t decide not to keep [traditional Medicare] as an option,” he said of his budget plan. “When you write a budget resolution, it’s the macro structure of an idea, not the specifics.”
So we never really wanted to privatize Medicare. It was just sort of an idea that we put into sort of a plan that's not, like, legislation or anything. Just an idea that we put out there that maybe we could all talk about. Really.
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