White House Economic Director blasts Ryan plan, defends Medicaid

[ProSense]

White House Economic Director blasts Ryan plan, defends Medicaid

by Joan McCarter

<...>

But there's some very good news on that front from the White House. Yesterday, White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling blasted the Republican plan and specifically the cuts to Medicaid that turning it into a block grant program would mean.

“I want to point out how isolated the House Republicans are,” he said. “Serious people doing serious discussions do not take an absolutists position that you cannot have a penny of revenue.”

He said Mr. Ryan has “put himself in a box” with his unwillingness to raise tax revenue. He said this forced Republicans to call for “very severe cuts” that if “explored” by Americans “they would not be proud of.”

Mr. Sperling attacked the House Republican proposals to overhaul Medicare and Medicaid, saying that the $770 billion in savings Republicans wanted from changing Medicaid would be unnecessary if Republicans would agree to roll back certain tax cuts.

“You can’t say to anybody who would be affected by that, that we have to do that, that we have no choice,” he said. “The fact is that all of those savings would be unnecessary if you were not funding the high income tax cuts.”

<...>

One good reason for the White House to fight for Medicaid is the role it's expansion plays in the Affordable Care Act. The Republican plan for Medicaid and the ACA are simply incompatible (of course, the Republican plan would repeal the ACA, so for the GOP that objection is moot). But additionally, as Ezra Klein points out and the graph up top reflects, Medicaid is a really cost efficient—cheap—program. It can't substantially be cut and made cheaper, if it's going to cover the same number of people.

The Republicans have no qualms about booting 34 million children out of the program. Or the millions of working poor, or the more millions of seniors in nursing homes. I'm not sure where Sen. Conrad falls on that one, but it's very good to know that the White House is vehemently opposed.

[Kdillard]

1. Good Dems need to be on the same page with this.