HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
second-ranking Senate Democrat, told me in an interview in
late July, before Ryan was on anybody’s radar as a serious potential
running mate for Romney. “I feel
that way and virtually every Democrat shares that feeling.”
“Then came Ryan-Wyden, an
attempt to moderate it and to
try to find a way to save money
in Medicare and not destroy it.
So we’re working on that possibility,” Durbin said, adding that
he was working on his own plan
with former White House health
care adviser Zeke Emanuel,
brother to Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel, Obama’s former White
House chief of staff.
So while Romney’s choice of
Ryan was undoubtedly a political
gamble, he likely studied it and
concluded that it wasn’t as risky
as it appeared.
“I would argue that the entirety of the political risk on
this issue is borne by President
Obama,” wrote Romney’s top
policy adviser, Lanhee Chen, in
an e-mail to me. It was a biased
and overly simplistic statement
by Chen, but it was also the kind
of thing no Republican could
have imagined saying in previous
presidential elections.
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
Medicare plan would stand up under criticism.
The Romney plan, Levin wrote
in National Review, would essentially introduce a governmentrun exchange where private plans
compete with the existing Medicare program, and beneficiaries
are guaranteed at least their current level of benefits, with hopes
that competition brings costs
down for the government.
Most important, Levin pointed
out, this plan was no longer a
voucher plan—the key criticism
of Ryan’s original Medicare proposal. The new plan was a premium support model that would
guarantee that benefits delivered
to seniors would maintain their
value. The only question, Levin
wrote, is whether the privatesector competition would reduce
health care costs or not.
“Either way, Medicare beneficiaries will have the same comprehensive, guaranteed insurance coverage they have now,” Levin wrote.
Even top Democrats, like Sen.
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), referred to
the Ryan-Wyden plan as a reasonable proposal, at least in the
days before Ryan was on the Republican ticket.
Ryan’s original plan “spelled
the end of Medicare,” Durbin, the