Ryan Destroys Dems' Mediscare Dreams

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Entitlements: Pity the poor Democrats. Here they were counting on scaring seniors about GOP plans to "destroy" Medicare when Rep. Paul Ryan teams up with a prominent Senate Democrat to offer a compromise reform.

From the White House on down, Democrats were wringing their hands this week about the bi-partisan Medicare reform plan offered up by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Their plan would shift Medicare from an open-ended health benefit to one in which the government provides a set amount of money for insurance. Seniors could choose from a variety of private, approved plans, as well as the traditional government-run Medicare.

The subsidy would be based on the second cheapest plan in an area, and if seniors wanted more expansive coverage, they'd have to pay the difference out of their own pockets. The reform would also cap the growth in Medicare.

Ryan had proposed this basic idea earlier in the year — only without the government-run Medicare option and with tougher cost controls — and was treated to barrage of ferocious attacks from Democrats who said it would kill seniors and who ran ads showing Republicans pushing grandma off a cliff.

But by making these changes and getting Wyden on board, Ryan has brilliantly managed to keep the essence of his reform while exposing the Democrats' attack plan for what it is: a crass effort to win votes by needlessly scaring seniors.

As one Democratic congressional aide told the New York Times, "this plan gives bipartisan political cover to Ryan and other Republicans against whom we have been waging a very successful political offensive."

Bi-partisan political cover? What ever happened to the Democrats' endless calls for bipartisanship and compromise?

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The Ryan-Wyden plan puts Democrats in an awkward position in another way as well, because on the surface, it's very much like ObamaCare — enrollees get to choose from a menu of approved health plans with the government subsidizing the premiums. It even borrows the term "exchanges" and has a "public option," something liberals tried and failed to get included in ObamaCare.