Budget bill reignites Medicare debate

By Karoun Demirjian

Thursday, March 22, 2012 | 2 a.m.

With the anniversary of the national health care law coming Friday and the Supreme Court’s much-anticipated consideration of a lawsuit to repeal it on tap Monday, this should have been Republicans’ week to drop the political bombs related to medical coverage.

Instead, Democrats are firing off health-related shots at Republicans, thanks to the release of House Budget Director Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget proposal.

Ryan's bill isn’t a replica of the budget bill that caused a months-long political fight last year over whether Republicans intended to kill or save Medicare. But it is, to the Democrats at least, new life for the issue they see as their biggest winner on the campaign trail — an issue which, in Nevada, both Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley and Republican Sen. Dean Heller have said they intend to make part of their Senate campaigns.

“I feel as if it’s deja vu all over again,” Berkley said Wednesday on the House floor. “Just one year ago, Washington Republicans proposed a plan to kill Medicare by turning it over to private insurance companies. ... Now, just one year later, Republicans are pushing yet another plan to end Medicare and devastate Nevada seniors by forcing them to pay thousands more out of their own pockets for health care.

“It was a bad idea for Nevada seniors when it was first proposed; it’s a bad idea for Nevada seniors now.”

Heller, on the other hand, steered clear of public statements, and when the Sun asked his campaign what they thought about the revival of the Ryan plan, they had nothing to say about it specifically.

“Sen. Heller cannot wait to see the Senate Democrats unveil their budget. Considering it has been over a thousand days since the Senate has passed a budget, they must be preparing one heck of a budget,” said Chandler Smith. “Until then, Dean Heller will continue to push his colleagues to have an up or down vote on his ‘No Budget, No Pay’ bill.”

It’s a noticeable change in tone for the lawmaker who last spring told reporters he was “proud” to be the only member of Congress to vote for Ryan’s budget twice — and was repeating that position in fundraising mailers as recently as last fall.

The “Ryan plan” became a political football after Democrats in the House realized that accusing Republicans of trying to “kill Medicare” by replacing it with a voucher-like program could be a winning campaign message.

Even as truth-squadding publications such as Politifact pointed out that the death-of-Medicare accusations were gross overstatements, Democrats pressed on — to the point where polls show that making changes to Medicare is one of the most publicly despised proposals a politician can make.

The Medicare proposal in the 2013 Ryan budget proposal is more moderate. It was honed in a bipartisan drafting process with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and avoids a full conversion to a private system, leaving regular Medicare as an option seniors can choose on an open Medicare exchange.

But the reaction Democrats anticipate to this piece of policy isn’t really about the changing particulars of the policy — it's about the political memory it conjures up.

“The fact that during a time of high unemployment, Washington Republicans are taking yet another pass at dismantling the Medicare system rather than focusing on job creation is just begging for a clobbering at the polls,” Nevada Democratic Party spokesman Zac Petkanas said. “After voting for the Ryan budget twice last year, Sen. Dean Heller must be cursing Republican leadership for making him live through this ordeal again.”

"While there are some Republicans, some politicians, that have ducked and dodged the Medicare issue, [Heller] has doubled down, and in some cases tripled down, for his support of privatizing Medicare," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matt Canter added. "That’s certainly going to be an issue he’s gong to have to explain to voters, and we believe he’s going to have a difficult time doing it."

Heller likely won’t have to vote on this budget — Sen. Harry Reid, who controls the Senate floor, called Ryan’s proposal “unnecessary” on Tuesday — but it’s a topic that’s likely to come up over the next few months.

Heller has sought to build a legislative track record on the notion that the Senate ought to be passing budgets. His “No Budget, No Pay” bill would withhold a salary from lawmakers for however many days of the fiscal cycle they haven’t adopted a budget through the normal process.

The party is also uniting around the complaint behind that legislation — that the Senate hasn’t passed a budget in too long — to answer the Democrats' charges.

“These desperate attacks only serve to highlight two things: that Shelley Berkley is the only candidate who voted for President Obama’s job-killing health care bill, which cut $500 billion from Medicare, and that under the failed leadership of her liberal mentor Harry Reid, the Senate hasn’t even passed a budget in over a thousand days,” said Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.