Now, it's official. We're not just talking about something the VP candidate proposed a year or two ago. The GOP, as a whole, has gone full steam ahead in their quest to gut Medicare and Medicaid, and they're making no real attempts to conceal it.
Let me qualify this by saying that the contents of the platform, originally leaked Friday, are only a draft. According to TPM:
The platform, snagged by Politico on Friday night after the Republican National Committee accidentally posted it to its website before taking it down, is scheduled to be approved at the convention early this week.
Politico, on Friday:
The Republican National Committee quickly pulled down a draft copy of its 2012 platform Friday afternoon after POLITICO discovered it hidden on the committee’s web site.
The RNC has kept the document tightly held, refusing to share earlier drafts with reporters. An apparent staff error led to its posting.
The RNC would not confirm that what was posted Friday is the final platform language, but it matches amendments approved earlier this week by the platform committee. The preamble is identical to what was read by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell at an open-press session Tuesday night.
The documents can be found
here and
here. The first three section of the first link contain the GOP plans for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. In their own duplicitous words, they're "saving" the programs.
As pointed out by Politico and reiterated by TPM, the Republicans won't say whether or not this is the final draft. Could this mean they're racing to scrub it from the final platform? Or, more likely, could it mean they're going to leave it there but pretend the whole platform doesn't exist? Probably the latter, since that's how they're handling the medieval passages on abortion, but you never know.
Here's the key language in the leaked platform, according to TPM:
“The first step is to move the two programs [Medicare and Medicaid] away from their current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model,” the draft platform reads. “While retaining the option of traditional Medicare in competition with private plans, we call for a transition to a premium-support model for Medicare, with an income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the enrollee’s choice. This model will include private health insurance plans that provide catastrophic protection, to ensure the continuation of doctor-patient relationships.”
The esoteric language gets to the heart of the change that ends the basic structure of Medicare. Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has been a government-run insurance program that directly pays medical bills for the elderly per their needs (i.e. “defined benefit”). Republicans want to turn it into a partially privatized system that pays seniors a fixed amount to buy their own health insurance (i.e. “defined contribution”).