President-elect Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) could be on a collision
course over Medicare.
Ryan
is defending his long-standing proposal to make the program more reliant on
private plans, arguing such a change is necessary to keep Medicare fiscally
sustainable.
But Trump said repeatedly
during the campaign that he wanted to protect Medicare, not overhaul it. Vice
President-elect Mike Pence reiterated
that position on Sunday.
Given the possible resistance from Trump, and
even from Senate
Republicans, it is unclear how hard Ryan will
push for Medicare changes `next year, despite his clear desire to overhaul the
program.
“My guess is that Ryan’s going to put a lot of
effort into trying to persuade Trump through Mike Pence and Reince Priebus and
others,” said Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy
Center who has long been close to Ryan. Priebus is Trump’s incoming chief of
staff.
“If that private effort doesn’t work, though,
I can’t imagine Ryan would push it if the president were against it,” Wehner
added. “I just don’t see how that works politically.”
In broad terms, Ryan has been making the case
that changes to Medicare are urgent.
“We have to do things to fix this program so
that we can guarantee that it’s there intact for current seniors, but also that
there’s something there for us when we retire,” Ryan said last week.
Remarks like that are in stark contrast with Trump’s
during the campaign.
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like
every other Republican, and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump
told conservative news website the Daily Signal last year.
His campaign promoted the article’s headline —
“Why Donald Trump Won’t Touch Your Entitlements” — on its website. Full
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