NEWSMAX / AP: The GOP plan is nonbinding but calls for repealing Obamacare, while transforming Medicare into a system in which the government subsidizes purchases of health insurance on the private market instead of directly paying medical bills.,,
This spring’s substitute cuts are likely to target, among other programs, food stamps, federal employee pensions, farm subsidies and a proposal to require higher-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums. There’s also a proposal to require higher-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums. Some of those ideas have been marched through the House before, only to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But the agriculture and food stamp cuts haven’t — and may prove troublesome.
Ryan’s plan is more of a campaign manifesto than a governing document. It is a dead letter in the Senate and is not even a starting point for a dialogue with Obama. For one thing, it breaks faith with last summer’s hard-fought budget pact, seeking to impose new 5 percent cuts on domestic agencies whose operating budgets will be written by the appropriations committees later this year… (more)
