[NYAPRS Enews] NYT, CNN: Senate Rejects GOP Medicare Reshaping Proposal

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Democrats Put G.O.P. on Spot as Medicare Plan Fails

By Jennifer Steinhauer   New York Times   May 25, 2011

 

WASHINGTON - Less than 24 hours after their surprising victory in the
race for a vacant House seat, Democrats forced Senate Republicans on
Wednesday to vote yes or no on a bill that would reshape Medicare
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthto
pics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> , signaling their intent
to use the issue as a blunt instrument against Republicans through the
2012 election. 

Democrats staged the vote to press their advantage coming out of their
victory on Tuesday in the contest, fought in large part over Medicare,
for a House seat in upstate New York that had long been in Republican
hands. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, brought the legislation
to the floor so that Senate Republicans would either have to vote for
it, exposing them to attacks from Democrats and their allies, or against
it, exploiting growing Republican divisions on the issue.

Five of 47 Senate Republicans voted against it - four because they said
it went too far, one on the ground that the budget measure that
contained it did not go far enough fast enough to address the budget
deficit.

The House Republican Medicare plan would convert it into a subsidized
program for the private insurance market. When they proposed it last
month as the centerpiece of their budget plan, Republicans were
confident that the wind of budget politics was at their backs.

But the last six weeks have left Republicans pointed into a something
more like a headwind. With polls and angry town hall meetings suggesting
that many voters were wary of a Medicare overhaul if not opposed, party
unity and optimism have given way to a bit of a Republican-on-Republican
rumpus.

House leaders have made clear they will not try to pass Medicare
legislation this year. Some Republican candidates and elected officials
have moved to distance themselves from the plan, even as others remain
in chin-out defense of it and others still are declining to commit
themselves one way or another.

With the Democratic victory in the House race, many House Republicans
argued that Democrats had no credible plan of their own to ensure the
long-term survival of Medicare, and reprised their criticism of the
health care overhaul, including Medicare spending cuts, that Democrats
passed in the last Congress.

But Democrats, hopeful that the Medicare fight is a path to a political
turnabout, are clinging to the recent developments like koalas to
eucalyptus trees, insisting that the New York race was, as Senator
Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said, "a bellwether for
elections to come."

It is still a long way to Election Day 2012, the underlying problem of a
long-term fiscal imbalance remains as pressing as ever, and Democrats
face divisions and message problems of their own. After the Senate vote
on the House Republican Medicare plan, the Senate voted 97 to 0 on
Wednesday to reject the budget put forward early this year by President
Obama, reflecting a recognition by Democrats that they will have to do
more than they initially proposed to rein in the expansion of the
national debt
<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/natio
nal_debt_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  and address the rising
costs of Medicare and other entitlement programs.

But after a 2010 election that seemed to signal not only a Republican
resurgence but also a rejection of big government and a need for bold,
Tea Party
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_part
y_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> -type steps to slash
spending, the politics now look much more complicated. Both parties are
being reminded anew that voters like the idea of budget cuts, but that
they often recoil when those cuts threaten the programs that touch their
lives.

The divisions among Republicans over the Medicare plan are in large part
situational.

Three of the Republicans senators who voted against the House plan on
Wednesday are moderates from Northeastern states: Scott P. Brown of
Massachusetts and Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. A fourth,
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, won re-election in November as a write-in
candidate after being defeated in the Republican primary. The fifth,
Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted no on the ground that the House plan,
drafted by Representative Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the Budget
Committee, took too long to pay down the national debt.

Candidates looking to shore up their conservative bona fides among
Republican presidential primary voters, like Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a
former governor of Utah, have praised the plan. Some Congressional
incumbents, like Ms. Snowe, weighed the respective threats of Tea Party
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/t/tea_part
y_movement/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  primary challengers
against the wrath of moderate or elderly voters, and decided not to
support it.

Some presidential candidates seeking to appeal to a broader base, like
former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, are trying to split the
difference, saying that the plan is adequate but that they will offer
their own that will be even more refined.

Others still, like George Allen, a Republican candidate for Senate in
Virginia, appear to be trying to figure out where the political
minefields are, and refuse to say if they support the plan.

Just as each candidate must take a measure of his own race, the party's
response is also driven by circumstances. Newt Gingrich, a presidential
candidate who seemed to think he could walk his party back from an
increasingly toxic issue, denounced the plan to great retribution from
both the establishment and Tea Party wings, and had to recant. Mr.
Brown, who is running for re-election in a tough state, said he would
vote against the plan but was greeted largely by silence within his
party.

But Democrats by no means have a smooth course, either. While Mr. Obama
has tried to set parameters for budget negotiations, his party has yet
to settle on a plan for Medicare or the broader budget issues. And
failure to address the nation's fiscal problems aggressively could carry
its own risk for Democrats, something former President Bill Clinton
warned his party about Wednesday.

"You shouldn't draw the conclusion that the New York race means that
nobody can do anything to slow the rate of Medicare costs," Mr. Clinton
said at a budget forum sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. "I
just don't agree with that."

Instead, he said: "You should draw the conclusion that the people made a
judgment that the proposal in the Republican budget is not the right
one. I agree with that."

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the minority whip, has said Medicare is
"on the table" for any agreement with Republicans in the debt limit
negotiations, a seeming nod to the notion that many Democrats,
especially those in moderate districts, are loath to go back to their
districts and brag about doing nothing to rein in the costly entitlement
program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/us/politics/26medicare.html?_r=2&hp

-----------------------

 

Senate Rejects Budget Measure Containing Medicare Overhaul

>From Ted Barrett and Tom Cohen, CNN  May 26, 2011

 

Washington (CNN) -- In what amounted to political theater rather than
legislative action, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a House budget plan
that included a controversial provision to overhaul Medicare and also
unanimously voted down President Barack Obama's 2012 budget proposal.

The House budget measure had been expected to fail in the Senate due to
overwhelming opposition by majority Democrats, plus wavering support for
its Medicare overhaul among Republicans. The Senate GOP has recognized
the provision's unpopularity with senior citizens enrolled in the
government-run health insurance program.

Senate Democrats forced Wednesday's vote in order to make Senate
Republicans go on record in support of the Medicare overhaul.

The final vote on the proposal originated by House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, was 57-40, mostly along party lines.
Republicans who joined the majority Democrats in opposing the measure
were Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul
of Kentucky, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine.

Three senators didn't vote -- Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
and Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York.

In a later retaliatory vote forced by Republicans, the Senate achieved
rare bipartisan unanimity in rejecting Obama's budget plan on a 97-0
vote. The defeat was expected.

Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the plan to signal they wanted
a stronger deficit reduction proposal than what the president offered.

The Senate then defeated two other Republican budget plans offered by
conservative newcomers Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Paul.

Ryan's plan, which won approval in the House due to strong Republican
support, drew the most attention of the proposals defeated Wednesday
because of its provision to rework Medicare starting in 2022.

On Tuesday, Democrats won a special election for a U.S. House seat from
upstate New York formerly considered safe Republican territory, and the
Republican Medicare plan was the central issue of the campaign.

Under the Ryan proposal, the government would no longer directly pay
health care bills for senior citizens in the program, starting in 2022.
Instead, recipients would choose a plan from a list of private
providers, which the federal government would subsidize. People now 55
or older would not be affected by the changes.

The budget proposal also would slash non-military discretionary spending
and reform Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program for the
poor and disabled.

Republicans call Ryan's proposal a courageous attempt to address runaway
spending that must be corralled to bring down rising deficits and a
ballooning national debt.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus blasted Democrats
for stopping "at nothing to preserve the status quo in Washington, which
is propelling our country towards bankruptcy."

Priebus' remarks reflected the fact that the question of how to tackle
the growth of hugely popular entitlement programs -- including Medicare,
Medicaid and Social Security -- has now become one of the central
battlegrounds in the national political arena.

Democrats, however, contend Republicans seek to reduce deficits on the
backs of the elderly and the poor by essentially ending Medicare as it
now operates. They note the Medicare overhaul will cost senior citizens
an average of roughly $6,000 more per year for health care.

"The Republican plan would kill Medicare," Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nevada, said Wednesday.

Democrats pointed to the New York special election results on Tuesday as
evidence that the American people, especially senior citizens, don't
agree with the Republican approach.

In the election, Kathy Hochul, the Democratic clerk of Erie County,
swept to victory in the race to fill the U.S. House seat previously held
by Republican Chris Lee in a district controlled by the GOP for more
than four decades.

During Hochul's victory speech Tuesday night, jubilant supporters
repeatedly chanted "Medicare! Medicare!" Hochul pledged to help balance
the budget "the right way, not on backs of our seniors."

Throughout the campaign, Hochul highlighted the national fight, telling
CNN that her Republican opponent, Jane Corwin, had "100% embraced" the
plan.

Corwin called Hochul's message "scare tactics," and had argued that
Hochul was "trying to put out the idea that I'm trying to end Medicare."

"There's nothing further from the truth," Corwin insisted. "I'm working
to protect Medicare."

Moments after Hochul's victory was announced, Rep. Debbie Wasserman
Schultz of Florida, the newly installed head of the Democratic National
Committee, declared that the outcome of the race proves "Republicans and
independent voters, along with Democrats, will reject extreme policies."

On Wednesday morning, Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee, released a statement arguing that the
results "provide clear evidence that Senate Democrats will be able to
play offense in Senate races across the country by remaining focused on
the Republican effort to end Medicare."

For their part, Republican leaders minimized the importance of the race.
Among other things, they pointed to the presence of a conservative
third-party candidate in the race whose support apparently exceeded
Hochul's margin of victory.

Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said his party has to promote
its budget policies and the Medicare overhaul proposal instead of voting
for it and then absorbing Democratic attacks.

"The talking point is there was a third-party candidate who drew 12% and
spent $2 million," Thune said of the New York race, adding that
supporters of the Ryan plan in the House and Senate now "need to get out
there and aggressively get on offense and explain it to the American
people."

To Thune, the Republicans made a courageous vote and now Democrats are
"starting to lob grenades at us and everybody's starting to duck and run
for cover."

"I don't think that's the way you engage in a fight," Thune said. "We
have to get out there and fight."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said the real
problem is that Democrats have failed to propose or pass a budget
proposal for last year or this one.

"This is a complete and total abdication of their responsibilities,"
McConnell said.

To hit back at Democrats, McConnell forced votes Wednesday on the other
three budget measures, including Obama's 2012 budget proposal.

McConnell sought to force Democrats to publicly oppose Obama's plan and
to also reject other Republican proposals in order to portray them as
obstructing any progress on cutting deficits.

In a bit of political irony, GOP leaders last year repeatedly attacked
the health care reform law pushed through by Democrats, arguing that it
would weaken Medicare. Republican congressional candidates crushed their
Democratic counterparts among voters age 65 and older in the November
congressional elections, carrying seniors by a 21-point margin.

Whether Republicans can now successfully defend Ryan's plan, which is a
virtual litmus test for their conservative base, without scaring older
voters remains to be seen.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now a presidential candidate, was
recently excoriated by conservative activists for calling Ryan's plan a
form of objectionable "right-wing social engineering." Gingrich has
since backed away from his remarks and expressed support for the
proposal.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/25/senate.medicare/ 

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