Rep. Chris Van Hollen: ‘The Romney-Ryan Medicare plan would have immediate cost increases for seniors’

By Ezra Klein , WashPost, Updated: August 18, 2012

Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen is the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. That makes him Paul Ryan’s counterpart in the House. And so Van Hollen, more so perhaps than any other House Democrat, has experience with both Ryan and his budget. We spoke on Friday about his working relationship the vice presidential candidate, the disagreements Democrats and Republicans have over Medicare, and why Democrats can’t seem to come together around one budget. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Ezra Klein: You’re the ranking member on the House Budget Committee. Paul Ryan is the Chairman of the Committee. How do you get along?

Chris Van Hollen: I get along very well with Paul Ryan personally. We have very deep differences on policy issues. But we express them civilly. We got together early on and went out to dinner, talked through some issues, and resolved to debate the policy issues fiercely but civilly. I think anyone who has observed the debates we’ve had in the Budget Committee would say we have.

EK: Let’s talk about those issues then. You and Ryan have spent a lot of time arguing about Medicare. Walk me through the debate.

CVH: The fundamental difference between the approach President Obama and the Democrats have taken and the approach Republicans have taken is this: The president, in Obamacare, worked to reduce health-care costs in the system overall, including in the Medicare system, by, for example, eliminating the huge overpayments going to private insurance in Medicare Advantage and by realigning the payment incentives to reward quality of care over quantity of care.

The Republican approach has been to shift rising health care costs onto the backs of seniors. Seniors would get a voucher that declines over time relative to rising health care costs. Seniors get stuck with the bill. And so the president’s approach did not cut any benefits to Medicare beneficiaries. In fact, it strengthened the benefit to individuals with high drug costs, strengthened the preventative benefit under Medicare. In the Ryan budget, they adopted those savings but did not recycle a penny of the savings into benefits.

We may also want to talk about this recent Romney-Ryan issue over the savings?

(More here.)