On Thursday, March 29th, the House of Representatives passed Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget on a party line vote.
The budget contains deep cuts to Medicaid that would shift costs to states and fundamentally transform the ability of the program to meet the health care needs of poor, elderly, and disabled Americans. Block granting Medicaid would reduce federal funding for the program by $810 billion over ten years (or 35 percent over a decade). This would force cash-strapped states to cut benefits, cut recipients, or reduce payments to doctors and other health care providers.
As a result of the Ryan Budget, as many as 14 million fewer Americans could have access to services under Medicaid.
The Ryan budget also drastically reshapes Medicare. The budget projects an estimated $205 billion in Medicare savings over President Obama's proposed budget over ten years by raising the eligibility age and capping Medicare spending growth.
Ryan's budget raises Medicare eligibility from age 65 to 67. This means that some seniors (65- and 66-year olds) would no longer be eligible for Medicare and would need employer coverage, which could come with high premiums and cost sharing. Since the Ryan budget also repeals or scales back other coverage options, hundreds of thousands of seniors could become uninsured.
The Ryan budget reprises the idea of Medicare vouchers. Future seniors would be offered a set amount with which to purchase private health insurance on newly created federal exchanges, or to use on traditional Medicare options. This plan would shift costs to seniors, making many pay higher premiums to stay in the traditional Medicare program to keep their current choice of doctors. Furthermore, critics charge that private plans would lure the healthiest, while leaving the sickest people to Medicare, driving up program costs.
Luckily, the radical Ryan budget will be dead on arrival in the Senate.
