Mitt Romney, in a speech before a conservative group here on Friday, offered his most detailed plan yet to cut government spending and lower the federal debt, including an overhaul of Medicare and significant changes to Social Security.
Speaking at theAmericans for Prosperity Foundation’s annual meeting, Mr. Romney said his plan would cap spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product by 2016, and would require $500 billion a year in spending cuts. To accomplish this, Mr. Romney explained, he would eliminate all nonessential government programs, including Amtrak, return federal programs like Medicaid entirely to the states and improve the productivity and efficiency of the federal government. He would also immediately cut all nonsecurity discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board.
Mr. Romney’s proposal for Medicare is similar to the hotly debated plan that Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, introduced in April. Mr. Ryan’s plan would replace Medicare and offer payments to older Americans to buy coverage from the private market.
Mr. Romney’s proposal would give beneficiaries the option of enrolling in private health care plans, using what he, like Mr. Ryan, called a “premium support system.” But unlike the Ryan plan, Mr. Romney’s would allow older people to keep traditional Medicare as an option. However, if the existing government program proved more expensive and charged higher premiums, the participants would be responsible for paying the difference.
This is certainly a good start, and appears to be correcting for some of the difficulties Ryan found in proposing his plan.
He presented his plan as offering more choice — though younger Americans would need to be prepared to possibly pay more, for instance, depending on which plan they selected.
“Younger Americans today, when they turn 65, should have a choice between traditional Medicare and other private health care plans that provide at least the same level of benefits,” he said. “Competition will lower costs and increase the quality of health care.”
He concluded, “The future of Medicare should be marked by competition, by choice, and by innovation, rather than by bureaucracy, stagnation and bankruptcy.”
His plans for Social Security did not include any privatization plans, which some of his Republican presidential rivals support. Instead, “for the next generation of retirees, we should slowly raise the retirement age,” he said. “And finally for the next generation of retirees, we should slow the growth of benefits for those that have higher incomes.”
We will have to see how this is scored by the CBO to see if it is sufficient to curb Medicare costs to a less ominous level, but that he’s speaking about it is a good first step. This problem will not age well.
Thoughts on the Passing Scene 