Healthcare summit: Medicare and the deficit

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As expected, Republicans are slamming Democrats for fuzzy accounting methods.

Despite starting his soliloquy with agreeable words, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) then moved on to accuse Democrats of double-dipping by making cuts in Medicare to pay for their bill. (Ryan has a point -- in budgetary terms, cutting Medicare spending is not the same as, say, raising taxes to bring in revenue.)

And, he says they’ve disingenuously excluded a $371-billion (or $210-billion, depending on whose numbers you use) item to prevent looming cuts in doctors’ payments.

Congress legislatively ignores those cuts each year. Another point of disagreement: Medicare Advantage, a private alternative to traditional Medicare that offers enrollees enhanced benefits.

Democrats have targeted the program as bloated. Republicans say those cuts would come on the backs of seniors. They’ll continue to debate these points, but a resolution is unlikely and, frankly, moot.

‘There really is a difference between us,’ Ryan said. ‘And it’s basically this: We don’t think the government should be in control of all this.’

To be fair, both Medicare programs in question here -- Medicare Advantage, where Democrats want to make cuts, and Medicare Part D, where they propose to increase spending -- are programs that were created by a Republican Congress and president.

-- Kim Geiger and James Oliphant