The GOP’s Medicare Defectors

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Welcome to Medicarepalooza! The political brawl surrounding the entitlement program will come to a new head this week, as Republicans face a series of tough challenges to Paul Ryan’s proposal to “end Medicare as we know it,” as the Democrats are fond of saying.

The Senate is likely to hold a vote on Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget in the upcoming days. The measure is all but assured to fail, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has insisted on the symbolic vote to hold the GOP accountable for the plan, which the GOP-controlled House passed in April. All Senate Democrats are expected to vote against it, but a small handful of Republicans could defect as well, primarily because of the Ryan plan’s Medicare overhaul.

Up to five Senate Republicans could end up voting against the Ryan plan this week, according to Politico‘s latest count. The Senate GOP’s tiny moderate wing would account for most of the defections. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) have pledged to vote against the budget, citing concerns with the Medicare proposal. Similarly, both Olympia Snowe* (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (I-Alaska.) are both “leaning no” on the budget. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), another more moderate GOPer, is “leaning yes” but hasn’t fully committed yet.

Finally, Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has put himself on the opposite end of the spectrum, vowing to vote against the budget for failing to go far enough. Paul has demanded that any proposal conform to his balanced budget amendment and has also insisted on major cuts to Social Security, which the Ryan budget doesn’t touch.

The Republican defections are likely to embolden Democrats, some of whom are already predicting that Medicare will be the defining issue of the 2012 elections. Both parties will also be anxiously awaiting the results of Tuesday’s special congressional election in upstate New York’s 26th district. The race has boiled down to a referendum on the Ryan Medicare plan, and the Democratic candidate, Kathy Hochul, is currently leading by 4 to 6 points. If the Democrats manage to recapture the seat—previously held by disgraced GOPer Chris Lee—they’ll be feeling especially bullish about their ability to use Medicare as a political cudgel in 2012.

*Update: Snowe told a local paper on Tuesday that she would vote no on the Ryan budget. She explains: “I am going to vote no on the budget because I have deep and abiding concerns about the approach on Medicare, which is essentially to privatize it.”

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate