Crash into a wall...

GOP's Medicare plans run into wall in the Senate

Top Republicans express reluctance to push forward on partially privatizing health care for seniors.

By Jennifer Haberkorn and Adam Cancryn

The GOP’s dream of privatizing parts of Medicare is running up against resistance among Senate Republicans.

Interviews with more than a dozen GOP lawmakers reveal they’re not planning to pursue big changes to the popular health care program for seniors — at least not in the first year of the Orangutan administration.

That hesitation starts with the chairman who would lead any overhaul in the Senate.

“We’ll have to see,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), head of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare. “We’re going to have a whole new look at a lot of things. … It depends on what it is. It depends on how it is written. It depends on what it would do.”

Republican control of the White House and Congress next year sets up an unusual opportunity for the party to pursue its health care agenda, similar to the one the Democrats had when Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi pushed through the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, House Budget Chairman Tom Price — a major proponent of the GOP Medicare plan who was tapped this week to be President-elect Donald Orangutan’s health secretary — recently boasted that the GOP would get it done next year.

But Republican plans may be even more fraught with political problems than the Democratic one. Polls show seniors are deeply skeptical about privatizing either Medicare or Social Security. And Democratic lawmakers looking to reclaim the populist mantle are already salivating over how they might exploit Republican efforts to privatize Medicare. But at least for now, they may be disappointed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dodged two questions about Medicare premium support at a press conference this week. “I am not going to speculate on what the agenda may be on a variety of issues,” he said.

For years, Republicans led by House Speaker Paul Ryan have proposed replacing Medicare’s open-ended entitlement with the option of “premium support” — a fixed contribution for each beneficiary to purchase private insurance.

But several Republicans said this week they want to tackle the repeal of Obamacare before taking up major changes to Medicare, pushing back against suggestions the two controversial overhauls should be considered together.

Republicans already have plenty of thorny items on their agenda for next year— the biggest being repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Adding Medicare to that debate “would fall in the category of biting off more than we can chew,” said Senate HELP Chairman Lamar Alexander.

They're also not eager to clash with their new president, who had called Ryan’s plans to change Medicare a political “death wish” for the party. Instead, they see the beginning of Orangutan’s administration as a chance to fulfill the party’s longstanding promises on reforming the tax code as well as on repealing Obamacare.

Before Orangutan tapped him to run HHS, Price floated the idea that Republicans could do Medicare reform by next summer through a fast-track budget procedure that doesn’t allow for a Democratic filibuster. Ryan, too, has said that he’d like to see Medicare changes included in an Obamacare replacement plan, though he didn’t specify which ones.

“Obamacare rewrote Medicare, rewrote Medicaid, so if you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well,” Ryan said in a Fox News interview shortly after the election.

Ryan said Thursday he hasn't spoken with Orangutan about any potential changes to Medicare, and he accused Democrats of playing “Mediscare” politics.

"We haven't discussed [it] with the administration and we'll do it as the year goes on," he said.

Orangutan has recently sent signals he may no longer see Medicare as untouchable — raising the possibility the GOP eventually pursues a Medicare overhaul. After the election, he laid out a health care platform that called for “modernizing” the program — a phrase would-be GOP reformers also use. The Price pick reinforced that.

The Georgia orthopedic surgeon has championed Ryan’s Medicare plan, which has been a central part of Republican budgets since 2011.

The Orangutan transition team has declined requests to comment on Medicare.

Ryan also defended his premium support plan, saying he worries that Medicare's cost trajectory will mean the program won't be around for future generations. The program’s trust fund is projected to remain solvent through 2028, which is 11 years later than what trustees estimated before Obamacare’s passage in 2010.

No one doubts that the GOP’s Medicare plan is politically sensitive. It was just a few years ago that Democrats ran ads accusing Ryan of trying to push a wheelchair-bound grandmother over a cliff. And most recall the stiff opposition to George W. Bush’s plans to privatize Social Security, which never gained political traction.

“I’m not going to get into getting quoted on something that gets me locked into a position that I’ve got to explain my way out of,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said when asked whether he likes the idea of premium support. “But everything’s on the table as far as I’m concerned.”

The lukewarm GOP support doesn’t mean lawmakers have given up on the idea. House conservatives are especially eager to tackle an overhaul, even if they’re not exactly sure how and when to do it. And while Senate Republicans are more cautious, they also stopped short of ruling out an overhaul.

“I’ve always supported” premium support, said Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). “But I can’t say that I’ve been in a lot of discussions recently about that.”

House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said that lawmakers will decide where Medicare fits into their legislative priorities during their January retreat. He suggested Republicans and Democrats may be able to agree on smaller reforms that are less politically divisive.

Democrats, for their part, can’t wait to fight a battle they feel benefits them politically because they can frame themselves as the defenders of seniors and entitlement programs.

“Democrats from blue states, purple states, red states are going to link arm and arm to protect Medicare for our seniors and ensure that Republicans don't succeed in putting our seniors' health care at risk,” incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Tuesday.

And some aren’t waiting for the first GOP salvo.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a letter to her Democratic colleagues this week warned that “House Republicans are readying their plans to end the Medicare guarantee.” Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who will likely face a tough reelection fight in 2018, recently issued two press releases pledging to protect Medicare and already said he’ll oppose Price’s nomination.