Republican lawmakers on Wednesday praised retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan’s leadership on entitlement reform despite falling short of major legislation on the issue.
Ryan has called out Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security as major drivers of debt, and he gained notoriety for touting budgets that slashed the popular programs. Republican lawmakers said Ryan did much to advance the issue in his 20 years in Congress.
“He’s been the only one who has truly been the torchbearer and the person out there raising the issue on entitlement reform,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., added that Ryan helped “set the stage” for lawmakers to continue the fight on entitlements.
“He set the stage for us with his knowledge and leadership on that,” Roe said. He added that Ryan likely would be remembered for helping shepherd the tax reform law last year.
But Ryan appears likely to fall short of his goal of a major overhaul to the programs before he leaves in January.
He shepherded through an Obamacare repeal bill in May that would have cut Medicaid. However, that effort collapsed in the Senate because some Republican senators opposed major cuts to the program, which provides health insurance to low-income people.
The Trump administration has sought some entitlement reforms through administrative actions, chiefly encouraging states to seek a federal waiver to impose work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients.
Meadows didn’t blame the failures on Ryan.
“To suggest that it didn’t get done because of a lack of leadership on his part is not accurate,” he said. “It is a lack of political will on everybody’s part.”
The budget proposals Ryan released while serving as chairman of the House Budget Committee called for steep cuts to Medicare and other entitlements.
In his 2015 proposed budget, Ryan wanted to replace traditional Medicare with a premium support voucher. The voucher would pay for premiums for private Medicare plans. Ryan’s budgets also have proposed gradually raising the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67.
“Starting in 2024, the Ryan budget would raise Medicare’s eligibility age — now 65 — by two months per year until it reaches age 67 in 2035,” according to a 2015 analysis from the left-leaning think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “This change would drive 65- and 66-year-olds who don’t have employer-sponsored coverage into an individual insurance market that would be poorly regulated (since the Ryan plan repeals the Affordable Care Act’s insurance reforms).”
Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., head of the 170-member Republican Study Committee, said he believes Ryan isn’t done going after entitlements.
“I know where his heart is and where he has communicated many times and would like to see some better adjustments and reforms for entitlements,” he told reporters Wednesday.
However, it remains to be seen what entitlement legislation the House could take up during an election year.
Meadows said some Republicans are pushing to look at smaller changes to the programs. One example is adding work requirements to the food stamp program in the five-year Farm Bill this year.
“I think there will be small baby steps more than giant leaps,” he said.
