Ryan Budget, With Medicare And Medicaid Overhaul, Rejected By Senate
Politico: Senate Votes Down Paul Ryan Budget Plan, 57-40
With five Republicans joining Democrats in opposition, the Senate easily rejected a House-passed budget plan Wednesday calling for deep cuts in domestic appropriations and major restructuring of Medicare, the government-backed healthcare program for the elderly. The 57-40 roll call proved more for show than substance but still stung for GOP leaders, coming less than 24 hours after the same Medicare issue figured prominently in the upset of a Republican candidate in a special House election for upstate New York (Rogers, 5/25).
The Washington Post: After Republican Election Defeat, Senate Rejects GOP Budget Plan That Would Overhaul Medicare
Immediately after the vote on the Ryan budget, the Senate also overwhelmingly rejected President Obama's 2012 budget proposal. The Obama budget did not secure the support of a single lawmaker, with all 97 senators present voting "no." ... Public polling shows that while voters are deeply concerned about the debt, they strongly oppose cuts to Medicare and other federal entitlement programs (Sonmez, 5/25).
The Associated Press: Senate Votes Down Controversial House Budget
Critics point to a nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office predicting the House Medicare plan would pay a shrinking share of seniors' insurance premiums over time and would lead them to either choose policies that offer less generous coverage or force them to pay thousands of dollars a year in higher premiums to maintain the coverage currently offered by Medicare (Taylor, 5/25).
The Hill: Senate Rejects Ryan Budget
Republican Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) voted no. ... Senate Democrats say they plan to attack Republican candidates relentlessly next year over Ryan's Medicare reform plans. ... Ryan's budget would cut spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade but is not projected to balance the budget within the next 20 years ... [and would] transform Medicaid into a block-grant program (Bolton, 5/25).
