Chairman Ryan: CBO Analysis Does Not Capture Adverse Effects of Price Controls and Rationing

Not only is Medicare careening toward bankruptcy -- the only alternative to the Republican plan to save it is the Democrats' plan to raid, ration and use price controls to try to squeeze more savings out of the program. The Democrats' health care law raids $500 billion from Medicare to pay for new entitlement spending. Medicare already pays providers 80 percent of what they receive in the private market, and by 2030, this is slated to fall to roughly 40 percent. CBO's analysis of the Path to Prosperity's Medicare reform does not capture the deterioration of seniors' access to quality health care that would occur under the Democrats' preferred approach. Any attack on The Path to Prosperity's plan for Medicare that compares it to the Democrats' approach fails to capture the full consequences for seniors of the deteriorating access and quality that results from bureaucratically denied care.