House Speaker Paul Ryan's wet dream of doing away with Medicare is finally about to be realized, that is unless an army of citizens rises up to fight him. That, or the parliamentarian of the House or Senate. While Republican plans for Obamacare still are hazy, at best, they have a laser focus on Medicare and are going to start immediately.
Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) said he expects lawmakers to push forward with an overhaul “within the first six to eight months” of President-elect Donald Trump's administration.
He said it would be tackled through the budget tactic in the Senate called “reconciliation,” which allows major spending-related bills to pass the upper chamber without a veto.
“I think that’s probably in the second phase of reconciliation, which would have to be in the fiscal year 2018 budget,” Price added.
It's the first time that a House GOP leader has said officials are planning to fast-track an overhaul of Medicare in 2017.
A structural overhaul—the kind of thing Ryan has been harping on constantly since 2011—is complicated by having to run it through budget reconciliation. There are elements that probably just couldn't pass muster with the House and Senate parliamentarians, the people who determine if lawmakers can do the things they're proposing to do under the actual rules that govern Congress. Now, parliamentarians can be overridden, but some lawmakers might think extra hard about doing that if something as radical as the continued survival of Medicare is at stake.
Previously, they've talked about Medicare reform as part of the reconciliation process they were going to use to repeal Obamacare, but putting them together might mean the failure of one or the other, given how many people the combined effort would screw over. If they put Medicare in with Obamacare repeal, they could be dooming it to fail. Or not. Maybe moderate Republicans, the very few who are left, will be just fine with it. Chances are, though, not.