Ryan, Price elected to lead key House finance committees

Two Republican legislators who have pushed for major changes to Medicare and Medicaid and want to scrap Obamacare will lead the top two House finance committees in the next session of Congress.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the current chair of the Budget Committee, will take the gavel at the Ways and Means Committee. Taking his place at the helm of the Budget Committee will be Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), an orthopedic surgeon who just won re-election to a sixth term.

Ryan, the GOP nominee for vice president in 2012, has spearheaded a House budget plan that would overhaul Medicare.

The most recent version calls for the government to provide “premium support” for people who are now 55 and under, when they turn 65. These future beneficiaries would apply the defined contribution— which some call a voucher—to traditional Medicare or to a private plan selected on a Medicare exchange. The government’s contribution would be adjusted based on beneficiaries’ health and income.

But Joe Antos of the conservative American Enterprise Institute predicted that Ryan won’t continue pushing the premium-support proposal now that he’ll need to put together a budget that can be enacted by Congress. Most Democrats and some Republicans oppose the premium-support model. “It’s a concept, it’s not fleshed out,” Antos said. “Now that he’s got Ways and Means, he has to deal with the specifics of policy and he has to deal with proposals that really can get through the House and can get strong support, at least among Republicans, in the Senate.”

Ryan also has called for converting Medicaid to a block-grant program for states. An analysis of his proposal by the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found it would slash Medicaid spending by 26% over a decade because the program’s costs would not keep pace with general healthcare costs and enrollment growth.

In 2009, Price co-authored what he described as a comprehensive alternative to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, called the Patients’ Choice Act. The proposal includes tax credits to help people buy health insurance, insurance exchanges, insurance market reforms, an end to the tax exclusion for employer-provided coverage, a national rulemaking commission on healthcare quality and costs and caps on medical liability suits.

“We will put forward a budget that restores balance to the nation’s books,” Price said in a written statement last week.