Heckuva job Wyden

by digby

[Paul] Ryan’s signaling he’ll swap out his old Medicare plan with a new one — one that he actually co-wrote with a Democratic Senator. That’s what Democrats think he’s going to do, and if they’re right, it will allow him and members of his party to claim they’ve moved significantly in the Democrats’ direction.

Here are all the details of the so-called Ryan-Wyden plan. There are two key differences between this plan and the original Ryan plan. The first is that Ryan-Wyden would preserve a Medicare-like public option as a competitor to private plans in its insurance exchange, and allow seniors to buy into it. The second is that it would leave the rate at which the program’s costs are allowed to grow exactly where it is in current law — forcing seniors to pay less out of pocket than would the original Ryan plan.

So substantively it is, indeed, a step or two left for the GOP. But here’s the key: it ultimately hands Medicare’s benefit guarantee over to a whimsical market, instead of keeping it in government hands, where it’s been for nearly 50 years. It would constitute a massive policy shift to the right. And that’s why Democrats abandoned Ron Wyden en masse the day the plan was unveiled.

Beutler characterizes this as a huge problem for Republicans and he may be right — assuming the Democrats are willing to play hardball and let Wyden twist in the wind alone. Unfortunately, even that won’t be good enough if the Villagers decide that this means a bipartisan accord that Medicare must be privatized and the Dems let it happen with their usual lame ducking and shirking. Before we know it, they will be breaking off and rushing to prove that they aren’t being obstructionists.

Paul Ryan’s a good politician. And a dangerous one. This might be a good year for the Democrats to try to defeat him. Of course, one would have thought that any year would be a good year to try to defeat him but for some reason they never seem to try.

You can donate to his opponent Rob Zerban, here. It’s doable.