Repeal of healthcare law, raising of Medicare age among Finance panel's supercommittee suggestions

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee say the deficit-cutting supercommittee should repeal President Obama’s healthcare reform law and make major changes to both Medicare and Medicaid.

The panel’s GOP members released their deficit-reduction proposals Friday, the deadline for committees to submit their ideas as the supercommittee looks to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit.

The Finance Republicans, led by ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), stopped short of endorsing Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) controversial proposal to convert Medicare into a sort of voucher program. Their recommendations roll together a host of other long-standing GOP proposals for overhauling the nation’s healthcare system.

The Republicans called on the supercommittee to repeal Obama’s healthcare law, highlighting its new taxes as well as benefits they say will ultimately cost far more than the Congressional Budget Office predicted.

“[The healthcare law] is the largest expansion of the federal government in a generation — adding to the nation’s debt, raising taxes on most Americans, and threatening job creation at a time when the nation’s economy remains weak,” the recommendations state.

CBO has said repealing the healthcare law would add roughly $145 billion to the deficit.

The lawmakers’ proposals for Medicare include several areas that have found at least some bipartisan support in the past.

They proposed raising the Medicare eligibility age, which Obama previously put on the table as a companion to new revenues. And they called on the supercommittee to consider asking some seniors — particularly high-income seniors — to pay for more of their Medicare benefits. Obama’s deficit-cutting proposal also called for some increases in cost-sharing, as did the Medicare bill proposed by Sens. Tom Cobun (R-Okla.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Cuts to doctors and other healthcare providers should also be on the table, the GOP senators said, as long as they’re used to strengthen the Medicare trust fund.

Their proposals for Medicaid will likely prove more controversial. The lawmakers said the supercommittee should consider converting federal Medicaid funding into block grants to the states — an option that Medicaid advocates and some providers strongly oppose. Block grants would likely lead states to significantly cut their Medicaid rolls, and advocates worry that the sickest, most expensive patients most in need of government help would be the hardest-hit.

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