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 Ryan's bold Medicare "premium support" plan would be sacrificed to
ensure passage of Congress' first full budget in six years and allow
Republicans a rare opportunity to use a powerful procedural tool to
ease passage of other legislation.
Dropping the fiscal conservative's signature plan, which had little
chance of enactment, is one sign of how the Republican-controlled
House and Senate are trying to show they can govern effectively as
they seek to win the White House in 2016.
Republicans are hoping to use the power known as budget
"reconciliation" to pass a bill to repeal or replace President
Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, known as "Obamacare," a
long-standing goal of the party.
For many House Republicans, a shot at dismantling Obamacare has
become the overarching budget goal, eclipsing other partisan policy
proposals driven by Tea Party conservatives to slash spending on
costly federal benefits programs.
 While Obama would be sure to veto such a bill, he could be forced to
compromise more with Republicans if a Supreme Court ruling on the
legality of federal Obamacare subsidies goes against the government
in June.
"To me the only thing that makes a real difference now is are we
going to have a vote to repeal Obamacare," said Representative Tim
Huelskamp, a conservative Republican from Kansas.
By invoking reconciliation, Republicans would only need a simple
majority in the Senate to pass such legislation, rather than a
nearly impossible 60-vote threshold to dismantle Obama's signature
domestic achievement.
Ryan's Medicare plan, adopted by the House for five straight years,
made him the guru of Republicans' drive to shrink government and
elevated him to his party's vice presidential candidacy in 2012.
The plan calls for converting the popular fee-for-service healthcare
program into a system of subsidies for seniors to buy coverage from
private insurers or a scaled-back Medicare starting in 2024.
 POLITICALLY RISKY MEDICARE PLAN
Republican lawmakers and aides in both the House and Senate say that
a deal nearing completion to work out differences between the two
chambers' budget plans will instead use the Senate's adoption of
Medicare savings goals that are similar to those proposed by Obama
this year.
"We're going to stick with the Senate language on Medicare," said
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a member of the budget
negotiating panel.
Republican Representative Mick Mulvaney also said Obamacare was the
bigger priority.
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"Would I be willing to make compromises on Medicare premium support
in exchange for stronger reconciliation language on Obamacare? The
answer is yes," he told Reuters.
Most of what will be passed in the Republican budget plan, including
domestic spending cuts aimed at eliminating deficits within 10
years, will be cast aside.
The real action is just now getting underway as appropriations
committees start to craft fiscal 2016 spending bills for government
agencies and the military. Debate over these spending levels will
come to a head this fall as a new government shutdown deadline looms
on Oct. 1 with a federal debt limit increase needed perhaps a month
later.
Any tinkering with Medicare has long been seen as politically risky,
especially for candidates in states with large senior citizen
populations, such as Florida, Arizona, West Virginia, Maine,
Pennsylvania and Iowa.
Ryan ignored such logic when he floated his Medicare plan as part of
his first budget in 2011. It was a bombshell, prompting Democrats to
claim it would gut Medicare's promise of guaranteed healthcare and
"voucherize" the program.
One Democratic TV attack ad depicted a Ryan impersonator pushing a
wheelchair-bound elderly woman over a cliff.
Now, Ryan has moved to become chairman of the powerful House's
tax-writing committee and has steered clear of budget policy.
Asked by Reuters this week to comment on prospects for his Medicare
plan surviving the budget negotiations, Ryan said he did not have
time to talk.
His spokesman Brendan Buck said: "The chairman is confident the
budget will allow the House to continue to pursue the important
kinds of reforms needed to save Medicare."
(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Stuart Grudgings)
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