Democrats and Republicans trade barbs over health care’s cost to seniors

“His plan succeeds in addressing our long-term fiscal problem, which is a significant accomplishment,” said Orszag, who did not in the president’s budget deliver a plan for long-term fiscal reform but instead said a fiscal commission would have to tackle the problem.

Orszag described his differences with Ryan’s plan this way: “It is a dramatically different approach in which much more risk is loaded onto individuals and in which the Medicare program in particular is dramatically changed from its current structure.”

Ryan himself has said that payments under his voucher system would not keep pace with the current rate of Medicare spending, but argues that making insurers and health care providers accountable to consumers for their rates would drive down costs.

The plan aims to increase coverage for lower-income Americans, because it is weighted toward income and provides greater benefits the more serious one’s medical condition.

“People have can vigorous debates about whether it would work. But it’s not a good idea by starting out saying the other side wants to destroy the social safety net and put seniors at risk,” said Bixby.

The question, then, is whether Obama and Orszag knew that their repeated mentions of Ryan’s plan — Orszag went out of his way numerous times to talk about it unprompted — would make him the target he has become.

The White House did not comment on this question when asked. But Republicans are holding the president responsible.

“The president is the head of his party. He elevated Representative Ryan’s plan and then his party has mis-characterized and attacked and distorted it when that was the exact thing that the president warned against,” said Ryan spokesman Conor Sweeney.

“What has transpired was precisely what the president warned against,” Sweeney said.

Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, also criticized the president for submitting a budget proposal that does not go out on a limb to prescribe tough fixes for runaway entitlement costs.

“It is totally irresponsible. It’s malfeasance, to send up a budget that you know is fiscally unsustainable, lead the nation into insolvency without any solutions at all,” Gregg told reporters last week, referring to the budget’s suggestion that a bipartisan commission is necessary for long term solutions.

“He’s the president of the United States. He’s supposed to be the leader, not wait for other people to give him ideas,” Gregg said.

Whether it was intentional or not, the president’s approach has redounded to Democrats’ benefit, at least politically.

“Democrats have been on the defensive lately and they obviously see this as an opportunity to change the conversation back in their direction,” Bixby said.

Republicans, however, have little room to point fingers. Even a senior aide to a conservative Republican senator said that the GOP leadership in both the House and Senate has spent much of the last year playing politics with Medicare and health care in general.

“When Democrats accused the GOP of not having a plan, that’s 90 percent spin,” the aide said. “But the 10 percent that’s true is the fact that our leadership did decline to put forward a clear robust plan, because politically they decided to run against Obama care.”