Much has been made of the Paul Ryan-authored House budget’s proposal to make Medicare more solvent through increased competition and choice — and rightly so. But that proposal is hardly the sole difference between the respective budgets authored by Ryan and President Obama.
In fact, Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare, which calls for the government to provide premium support to help seniors purchase private health insurance of their choice, would not even kick in until after the 10-year budgetary window (and, even then, it would not affect anyone now 55 years old or older). So, without even counting that proposal, and focusing entirely on the next ten years, how much difference would there really be between Ryan’s and Obama’s budgets? A cool $1 billion a day.
