Before Washington goes on their two-week Easter break, the House wants to vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2012 Budget proposal that would cut $6 Trillion over the next ten years.
FoxNews | House to Vote on GOP 2012 Budget
With a fundamental restructuring of Medicare and Medicaid, the plan has been blasted by Democrats, including President Obama, as an attempt to leave seniors and poor holding the bag on health care costs.
But Ryan, R-Wis., says the effort is an attempt to “preempt austerity” that will come by following the current budget route, which on its current trajectory adds $6.7 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
“What we’re trying to do here is keep the social compact,” Ryan told an audience in Washington on Thursday. “A limited government, free enterprise system, a government that lives within its means, a government (that) keeps its promises to the most vulnerable in our society, to the seniors in our society, but a government that continues the idea of America, the characteristics of America, equal opportunity, upward mobility, prosperity.”
According to Ryan’s plan, Medicare payments would no longer be paid by government sending out checks for medical bills, but would let people under age 55 choose among private insurance plans that the government would then supplement. People 55 and over would remain in the current system, but younger workers would receive subsidies that would steadily lose value over time. Ryan says those who can pay more will have to do so while lower income Americans will still be covered.