The Republican Plan To Overhaul Health Care

washingtonpost.com — The 2008 Republican party platform on Medicare and Medicaid was pretty vanilla. It called for minor tweaks to the program that just about any health wonk could get behind, things like better coordination between doctors and more vigilance against fraud. The whole section came in at about 200 words. Politico has obtained a draft of the 2012 proposal and, for health care, four years has meant a sea change. The Republican party now throws its weight behind a complete restructuring of both entitlement programs. Since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, they have operated as insurance plans where subscribers receive a set amount of benefits. The Republican plan calls for a fundamental change to that structure. They want to set a specific budget for the program and then have seniors and states figure out what benefits they can purchase. The concept of “defined benefit” gets thrown out the window.

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