Search Results for 'Ryan'

The Kline-Ryan-Upton Republican Off-Ramp from Obamacare

Tomorrow is the day the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in King vs. Burwell, and all the talk is about what Congress will do if the Supreme Court directs the Administration to obey the law by not paying subsidies in the majority of states, which have declined to establish their own Obamacare exchanges and defaulted to the federal one.

The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed (available by subscription) by John Kline, Paul Ryan, and Fred Upton, who chair committees of jurisdiction in the House of Representatives that will be tasked with proposing a Congressional response to this decision. Here’s what they write:

Let people buy insurance across state lines. Stop frivolous lawsuits by enacting medical-liability reform. Let small businesses band together so they get a fair deal from insurance companies.

Mar 03, 2015 | 10 comments | by

How to Get a Medicaid Work Requirement? Bundle It with Paul Ryan’s Opportunity Grants

A similar version of this Health Alert appeared at Forbes.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory have asked President Obama to allow them to include work requirements in their Medicaid programs. Work requirements were critical to the success of welfare reform in 1996 and would also change Medicaid from a dependency-trap to a true safety net. The best way to achieve it would be through legislation, not relying on executive action.

A new study I’ve written for the National Center for Policy Analysis explains how including Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as part of safety-net reform, instead of keeping health care in its own silo, would greatly improve the federal welfare state for both recipients and taxpayers. Fortunately, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has proposed reforms to the federal safety net that could include Medicaid and CHIP.

Mr. Ryan’s proposal, Expanding Opportunity in America, focuses on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), housing and home-energy assistance, education assistance, food stamps (SNAP) and criminal sentencing reform. Ryan’s proposal hinges on the Opportunity Grant (OG). States would apply for OGs that would roll some or all of the federal spending on individuals and families in poverty into one lump sum for distribution to the states. States, civil society organizations and recipients themselves would all be responsible for transitioning recipients out of dependency and into self-reliance.

Ryan is looking back to the success of the 1996 welfare reform signed by a reluctant President Clinton after a successful campaign by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Ten years after the reform, it was widely recognized as a significant success, even by the mainstream media. Medicaid, unfortunately, was never reformed in 1996.

There are very good reasons to reform all of these safety-net programs comprehensively, in one fell swoop.

Jan 12, 2015 | 3 comments | by

Medicaid Should Be Included in Paul Ryan’s Anti-Poverty Proposal

Congressman Paul Ryan has introduced a proposal, Expanding Opportunity in America, to bring together different federal anti-poverty programs into one. Ryan focuses on the Earned Income Tax Credit, housing and home-energy assistance, education assistance, food stamps (SNAP), and criminal sentencing reform. Ryan’s proposal hinges on the Opportunity Grant (OG). States would apply for OGs that would roll some or all of this federal money into one lump sum. However, it would not just be turned over to states as a block grant. States, civil-society organizations, and recipients themselves would all be responsible for measuring and achieving outcomes. The OG would have one overriding goal: To facilitate recipients moving out of dependency and into self-reliance. Ryan is looking back to the success of the 1996 welfare reform, signed by a reluctant President Clinton after a successful campaign by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Ten years after the reform, it was widely recognized as a significant success. (In 2012, President Obama gutted much of the reform through executive action.) At a recent briefing at the American Enterprise Institute, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution pointed out that this proposal should have bipartisan

appeal, and if it got to President Obama’s desk he would likely sign it. This explains the appeal of Ryan’s proposals. He doesn’t just throw out wide-eyed ideas designed to attract media attention. He develops them and modifies them until they get enough support from his colleagues that a pathway to success can be identified. This is what happened to his Medicare reform proposal. The initial version, contained in his Roadmap, proved bait for demagoguery. President Obama accused him of wanting to give seniors “some kind of voucher,” insinuating that it would be about as valuable as a supermarket coupon. Most Republican colleagues were terrified of having to vote for this. Nevertheless, after some watering down, Ryan put it in his budget and convinced his colleagues to vote for it.

Jul 30, 2014 | 16 comments | by

Twofer: Ryan’s Medicare Plan Saves Taxpayers $20 Billion and Reduces Seniors’ Premiums

Paul Ryan keeps making his Medicare reform proposal more politically palatable, while still saving money all around:

08Ryan’s plan has gone through several versions, but all of them have been based on the old bipartisan idea of “premium support.” The idea was that instead of paying for senior citizens’ medical services directly, the federal government would help them purchase private coverage plans.

The CBO still projects savings for the federal government — $15 billion — but it shows that beneficiaries will pay less, too.

(Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg View)

Apr 18, 2014 | 14 comments | by

Ryan’s Budget Plan Keeps Tax Increases, and Other Links

Is Ryan hypocritical? Are his critics hypocritical? Or, is everybody being hypocritical?

Economists have been historically libertarian.

The cave man diet isn’t recommended after all.

Mar 19, 2013 | 17 comments | by

Avik Roy Defends Ryan

Charges and countercharges here. They all have to do with whether Ryan in being hypocritical in his criticisms of Obama. My take:

  1. Ryan’s budget also cuts Medicare spending by the same $716 billion that ObamaCare takes out of Medicare, as Tom Saving and I explained in USA Today. (WSJ runs all the budget numbers and they are reproduced at Ezra’s blog.) Also, neither Ryan nor Obama has a realistic plan to slow down the rate of growth of Medicare without harming seniors. However, Ryan at least is not locked in to ruinous ceilings on provider fees that ObamaCare imposes. So he could follow our market-based suggestions instead.
  2. Ryan did decline to endorse the Simpson-Bowles commission recommendations. But he has been willing to work across the aisle. He has not staged public events where he insults and embarrasses the president – burning all bridges in the process. The president, by contrast not only does not talk to Republicans; he doesn’t talk to Democrats either.

The biggest problem I have with folks on the left is they continue to talk about ObamaCare like it’s a $1.8 trillion dollar free lunch. All gain; no pain. Sorry, there’s no tooth fairy.

Aug 30, 2012 | 8 comments | by

Ryan vs. Obama on Medicare, Part II

[I]t was ObamaCare that already changed Medicare as we know it, transforming it literally into a death trap for seniors. ObamaCare slashed Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals by $1 trillion over the next 10 years alone, according to the latest CBO projections, besides the cuts to Medicare Advantage…

Effectively refusing to pay the doctors and hospitals that provide the medical care Medicare promises to seniors is no way to solve Medicare’s financing problems…This is like trying to achieve budget savings in national defense by not paying the manufacturers of the Air Force’s planes, the Navy’s ships, the Army’s tanks and artillery, and the bullets, bombs and guns.

Think of it this way. You wouldn’t try to balance your own family budget by just refusing to pay your bills, particularly for goods and services you planned to continue to consume. You would recognize that is really just stealing. Instead, you would either cut back on your purchases, or find ways to increase your income…

Contrary to the childish silliness of Wasserman Schulz and Carney, Ryan’s Medicare reforms would simply extend the popular and successful policies of Medicare Parts D and C to Medicare Parts B and A.

Source: Steve Moore and Peter Ferrara in the American Spectator.

Aug 13, 2012 | 9 comments | by

Ryan vs. Obama on Medicare

In this election season, we are likely to hear many charges and countercharges about who is trying to harm the elderly and who is trying to protect them — especially on the matter of Medicare.

On the one hand, there is President Barack Obama and the 2010 health care law, what some call “Obamacare.” On the other hand, there is Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s Republican budget.

What makes all of this vehemence so surprising is that there is no important difference in Medicare spending under the two approaches — even when the estimates of the president’s budget are made by his own Office of Management and Budget and the Ryan plan is specified by Ryan himself.

This is from a Roll Call editorial by yours truly and Tom Saving.

Aug 13, 2012 | 4 comments | by

A Liberal Economist Praises the Ryan Plan

I once called an older version of Paul Ryan’s budget plan “voodoo economics.” But you have to admire him. He has just released a new plan that slashes the deficit from 8 percent of GDP to around 1 percent by the end of the decade while simultaneously keeping revenues at 18 percent of GDP over the decade, very close to their historical average…

I expected to be horrified by what I read. I am not in favor of cutting programs for the poor, especially in a plan that reduces taxes for the wealthy and leaves Social Security virtually untouched. Instead, I found myself at least intrigued with the arguments that I found in this section of the plan. They are thoughtful, well-articulated, and worthy of further debate.

One argument is that federal subsidies for safety net programs encourage states to spend more than they otherwise would. Another argument is that federal dollars come with federal prescriptions and paperwork that stifle state innovation and efficiency. A third argument is that these programs undermine efforts by civic or faith-based groups to play a stronger role. A fourth argument is that some of these subsidies (for example, Pell grants) simply bid up prices (for college tuition). A fifth argument is that we have too many overlapping and complex programs with similar purposes (job training being a great example). A sixth argument is that assistance should be made conditional on personal responsibility—for example, being engaged in work or job training if you are receiving government assistance. This model of conditional assistance was a key element in the largely successful 1996 welfare reform law and could be expanded to other programs. Finally, the plan emphasizes the importance of upward mobility—a goal which I think many can embrace.

More by Isabel Sawhill at The Health Care Blog.

Mar 22, 2012 | 7 comments | by

In Defense of the Ryan/Wyden Medicare Plan

In fact, it would be fair to say that virtually everyone who has taken a serious look at the Medicare program’s cost problems (which also date from the inception of the program) has come to the same conclusion. Instead of basing the program’s contribution to premiums on the cost of care in the traditional FFS health plan, the government contribution should be based on bids from competing health plans, including both private plans and traditional FFS Medicare. Jessica Vistnes and her colleagues at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that offering multiple health plans with a level dollar contribution to premiums minimized total healthcare costs compared to offering only one plan. Roger Feldman at the University of Minnesota recently estimated that premium support would result in immediate savings to the Medicare program of 9.5 percent of total program cost–5.6 percent more than the provisions in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

Source: Bryan Dowd writing in The American.

Dec 28, 2011 | 3 comments | by
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