Flanked by three of his colleagues, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation today that would end Medicare’s remaining fee-for-service programs, enroll current recipients into the federal employee health plan, and cut $1 trillion in spending over 10 years.
“This will be the new Medicare,” Paul said. “Medicare will be the federal employee health care plan.”
“Right now we pay $11,000 per person for Medicare,” Paul explained. “Right now for the federal employee health plan is $5,000. It’s going to be about $7,000 when we put an older crowd in there. Federal employees including myself will have to pay more. It’s about $30 a month more. But I think that’s something we have to do to make it fair to help save Medicare.”
The legislation, dubbed the Congressional Health Care for Seniors Act (CHCSA), also includes significant means testing elements. While most seniors would have 75 percent of their premiums covered, seniors with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 would have to pay 70 percent of their own premiums. Seniors with incomes between $200,000 and $1 million would have to pay 85 percent of their premiums, and those making more than $1 million a year would get no subsidy.
Asked if their proposal was really just Obamacare for seniors, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed out that their proposal brought more market forces into the health care sector, not less. “Medicare is already set up as a government program,” DeMint said. “So we’re beginning to privatize with this idea. To go the other way in the private sector for people who have private employment, and to bring that under government control and to define benefits is completely the opposite direction. So what we’re trying to do with Medicare is move it back toward a plan that we would like.”
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, are also co-sponsoring the bill and joined Paul and DeMint at the press conference.
Sen. Paul’s CHCSA establishes a conservative alternative to House Budget Committee Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan which is set to be unveiled next Tuesday. Ryan’s proposal, which has the support of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is expected to include the existing fee-for-service Medicare program as an option for seniors.
