Ryan Plan: $1T in Medicaid Cuts

Politico reports:

House Republicans are planning to cut as much as $1 trillion over 10 years from Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled, when they unveil their fiscal 2012 budget early next month, according to several GOP sources.

Though Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has yet to lock in his final numbers, he made clear to POLITICO in February that he intends to target Medicaid and Medicare for savings. While Medicaid is easiest to win consensus on, Medicare is the biggest debt driver. It’s not yet clear how much Ryan hopes to cut from Medicare, and he and GOP leaders have been reluctant to discuss their plans for the other entitlement behemoth: Social Security. But they’ve made clear that they don’t consider Social Security to be as pressing an issue as Medicare and Medicaid.

The entitlement cuts represent a major battleground for the parties from now through the 2012 election: Democrats are already accusing Republicans of slashing benefits for the neediest Americans, but Republicans say the program needs to be reformed to give states more flexibility in how they use federal dollars — and to rein in the costs for both the federal and state governments, which are swimming in red ink because of health care costs.

To bolster their cause, GOP leaders point to years of requests from governors to reform Medicaid so that their states aren’t on the hook for so much money in the federal-state partnership.

Because the new health care law includes a major expansion of the program, there’s a bit of a double bonus for GOP leaders in slashing it: It’s a bigger pot than it used to be, and it’s a major component of what Republicans derisively call “Obamacare.”

They have vowed to target entitlement spending in their budget, after chiding President Barack Obama for failing to lead because his fiscal 2012 budget blueprint didn’t touch Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. Under that budget, Medicaid grants to states would more than double — to about $600 billion per year — by 2021.

Ryan’s spokesman, Conor Sweeney, said it’s still “premature to speculate on specifics” but didn’t knock down the trillion-dollar figure.

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