A spokesman from Vermont’s Senate delegation said the U.S. House Republican budget proposal to be voted on next week would “take away the social safety net.”
Federal funding for health care incentives that would help to fund the state’s just-passed health care reform effort, H.202, could also be in jeopardy, according to a staffer. The Ryan plan repeals the Affordable Care Act.
In a conference call on Thursday hosted by the Alliance for Retired Americans, spokesmen for Sen. Patrick Leahy and Sen. Bernie Sanders said the senators would not support Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal if it comes up for a vote next week. Ryan, who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, has proposed drastic cuts Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Medicaid would be cut by one-third, and states would receive a fixed amount of money through a block grant program.
Read the Alliance for Retired Americans’ fact sheet on the cuts.
They said the Ryan budget would replace Medicare payments for seniors with vouchers for private insurance worth just under $10,000 a year, or less than a third of projected costs for seniors.
David Reynolds, senior health advisor to Sanders, said that under the Ryan budget “we could be back to where we were in the 1960s, when there were a lot of insurances that didn’t offer coverage for the elderly.”
Reynolds cautioned that much of Vermont’s recently-passed healthcare bill, H.202, is incompatible with the Ryan budget bill. Under the House appropriations plan, Vermont would stand to lose federal incentives and some state-level reforms as H.202 is implemented.
Although the Ryan budget passed the House of Representatives on April 15, both Reynolds and John Tracy, state director for Leahy, remain confident that the Ryan budget bill will be defeated in the Senate. The concern, they said, is that this is a first salvo by Republican lawmakers, intended to force Democrats to compromise on their own budget plan.
Reynolds went on to say that the budget proposal would jeopardize affordable premiums for seniors. Under current legislation, Medicare premiums are standard: “Whether you’re 65 or 95 you pay the same premium,” said Reynolds. In Ryan’s proposal, private insurers would have no incentive to insure the nation’s oldest at the same rate as they insure recent-retirees, for example.
A report by the ARA found that Medicaid stands to lose a third of its funding, $1.4 trillion, if the Ryan budget passes the senate. The report also warns that Social Security is on the chopping block; the reforms would reduce the number of middle-class recipients, raise retirement age to 67, and make Social Security eligible for congressional “fast-tracking,” curtailing debate on future reforms.
Dennis LaBounty, a political director for the AFL-CIO, weighed in: “I really doubt my social security check is going to help me pay for the extra out of pocket. I’m not sure how they expect us to get the quality healthcare we need.”
“I feel more threatened by the Republicans in D.C.,” said LaBounty, “than I do by terrorists.”
