GOP budget plan would revamp Medicare and Medicaid to slash deficit

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington— House Republicans' 2012 federal budget plan will propose significant changes to Medicare, shift control of Medicaid to the states and aim to chop more than $4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Sunday.

Ryan's broad overview of the GOP plan, which is slated to be officially unveiled Tuesday, included a combination of entitlement reforms and spending cuts that amount to a dramatically different approach to deficit and debt reduction than that advocated by President Obama.

Obama's plan, proposed in February, aimed to shave $1.1 trillion from the deficit over 10 years through a combination of increased revenues and targeted budget cuts. He did not suggest structural changes to the nation's social safety net programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Republicans blasted that plan as ignoring the primary drivers of the escalating debt and deficits, as well as the solutions proposed by a commission Obama tasked with drafting a reduction plan.

In contrast, the GOP budget plan would attempt to make changes to entitlement programs as recommended by the commission.

The proposal would rework Medicare by offering seniors a menu of private plans and restructure Medicaid funding into block grants distributed to the states, while apparently leaving Social Security unchanged, Ryan said. The changes would not affect current recipients of Medicare, he said.

The Wisconsin Republican declined to offer exact estimates, but said the plan would go further than the commission's recommendations, which proposed nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction through 2020.

"We believe in exceeding the goals put out by the president's debt commission," he said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace."
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Republicans rediscover entitlement cuts.