The newly installed GOP leader of the powerful Senate Finance Committee says he’ll use his position to push for reforming the federal government’s major health insurance programs of Medicare and Medicaid.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch pointed to five bills aimed at reforming Medicare and Medicaid that he introduced during the last Congress, which didn’t go anywhere under the leadership of the top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.
Now that Republicans have control of the Senate — and Hatch holds the reins at the committee — he wants to pick up some steam on the goal of fixing the financially troubled programs.
“This is not a Republican wish list of terrible things we’d like to do to Medicare and Medicaid,” Hatch said, in a speech laying out his legislative priorities at the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
Politicians often talk about the need to reform the government’s health insurance programs, but there’s little bipartisan consensus on how to do so. Wyden, still the top Democrat on Senate Finance, is so far the only senator in his party to endorse a Medicare reform plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Ryan, who has taken the helm at the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has said he’ll push for his plan — but he’s also willing to take smaller steps to get there.
But few members of Congress, Ryan included, think the parties will be able to agree on any major entitlement reform during the last two years of President Obama’s term. The most recent forecasts have shown that Medicare has an additional four years before it will become insolvent, giving it until 2030 — fifteen years from now.
“We need to act, and we need to do so sooner rather than later,” Hatch said.
