It should now be clear to Republicans they are in trouble over the Ryan Medicare plan.
Yesterday, they lost a seat in a solid Republican New York House district. Their candidate had benefited from lots of money and House leadership attention. The big issue was the Ryan Medicare plan.
All month, Republican Presidential candidates have been walking a tightrope over the Ryan plan--don't embrace it but don't criticize it either for fear of offending the base who will drive the primary outcomes next year. You only had to watch the Gingrich implosion to see what happens if you fall off that tightrope.
Next the Senate will take up the Ryan budget. Senate Democrats can’t wait for a vote on it and are making the Ryan Medicare plan the central issue. Already, at least three Senate Republicans have said they will not vote for the House budget over the Medicare issue. Leader McConnell, sensitive to its political vulnerability, has told Senators they are free to vote their conscience on this one.
Apparently, Republicans don’t understand that they didn’t win the 2010 elections so much as the Democrats lost them. Their fixation on appeasing the right wing of their party misses the critical point that it is independent voters who make the difference in winning or losing an election.
In 2006 and 2008, independents went Democratic. In 2010, they abandoned the Democrats for the Republicans out of concerns for where the Dems were taking the county—not the least over health care.
But an apparent arrogance among Republicans that their 2010 victory was more about them than a rejection of the Democrats quickly led the House to pass Ryan’s budget and Medicare plan with all but four Republican votes. They seemingly never considered the possibility that dismantling Medicare, as we know it, needed to be pre-sold to voters. Now, those House Republicans are hanging out on one giant limb the Democrats can’t wait to cut off in the next election.
That House vote has put Republican presidential candidates and Republican Senators in a really tough spot: Keep independent swing voters happy by backing way from the Ryan plan but offend the Republican base, or support the Ryan plan by giving those House members now out on that limb political cover for their ill considered vote and suffer their own longer-term political consequences?
Ryan’s Medicare plan has been called courageous and farsighted. It may be more foolish and hardly good policy.
Readers of this blog know of my criticisms of the Affordable Care Act particularly over its lack of cost containment—the fundamental health care issue we face.
Ryan’s Medicare plan is poor politics and it is poor policy.
It is poor politics because it is nothing but a cost shift strategy. It is poor policy because it is nothing but a cost shift strategy.
It is hardly courageous. Apparently Republicans have no more courage to face the cost issue—and the politically powerful provider community—than Democrats do.
Now, for those of you ready to criticize these comments for my “lack of understanding of defined contribution health care policy,” please read this first: Defined Contribution Health Care—The Conservatives' Silver Bullit
