Scott Wong
May 10, 2011
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54688.html
Senate tea partiers are lining up behind a novel Medicare proposal: spend more on it than even President Barack Obama wants.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) on Tuesday rolled out the budget blue print with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the chamber’s de facto tea party ring leader, and freshmen GOP Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who all won election last fall with strong tea-party backing.
Toomey’s budget would spend $6.49 trillion in Medicare spending over the next decade; Obama’s budget calls for $6.46 trillion for Medicare during that same period.
“Senator Toomey has now allocated more money for Medicare than the president did,”said DeMint, adding that the Obama budget would cut the amount that Medicare pays doctors. “If you want to look at a real cut in Medicare, look at the president’s plan at this point.”
The Toomey plan would spend more on Medicare by permanently reforming the so-called “doc fix,” taking the entire cost of fixing the “sustainable growth rate” — $300 billion over 10 years — and incorporating it into the Medicare baseline, aides said.
The fact that some of the Senate’s most conservative voices are calling for an increase of any kind in this spending environment underscores how closely they’ve monitored the brutal reception House Republicans faced when they traveled to their districts and explained their vote on the House budget over the Easter recess.
The House plan, proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan and endorsed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), would slash $750 billion in federal spending on Medicare and gradually phase in subsidies for private health care over the next decade.
On spending, the Toomey plan aims to balance the federal budget over the next nine years by cutting spending to 18.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product and reducing debt to about 52 percent of GDP by 2021. It also lowers tax rates and eliminates some tax loopholes.
Both proposals would turn Medicaid into a block-grant program for states.
While Toomey and others GOP senators plan to vote for the Ryan plan when it comes to the Senate floor, the Pennsylvania Republican said he didn’t seek to duplicate it.
“What Paul Ryan has done is an enormously valuable contribution to the discussion and this process. He has laid out a vision that really accomplishes an enormous amount,” said Toomey, the former president of the fiscally conservative Club for Growth. “His goal is different than the goal we set for this budget,” adding that the Toomey budget targeted cutting spending and debt.
“A permanent solution to the fiscal challenges that we face will require broader reforms than what we have in this budget,” Toomey added. “Ultimately, we need to reform the Social Security program; we need to reform Medicare. But this budget represents what we think of as a necessary first step.”
When he was back in his home state, Rubio said he heard constituents defending Medicare but recognizing the entitlement program needed to be fixed so it wouldn’t run out of money.
“They want us to save Medicare. I think people are increasingly understanding that Medicare in its current structure will go bankrupt and within next five to 12 years there won’t be a Medicare,” said Rubio, whose 80-year-old mother is a Medicare recipient, as was his father who passed away last fall.
“I understand the benefits that Medicare brings to America. It should be a part of our country,” Rubio added. “I want Medicare to exist in a way that is unchanged for people that are in Medicare now. I want Medicare to exist when I retire. I want Medicare to exist when my children retire. And I don’t want Medicare to bankrupt itself for our country, and Medicare as it’s currently structured will go bankrupt.”