Boehner: When we say 'privatize' Medicare, we don't mean 'privatize'

by Joan McCarter for Daily Kos

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This is encouraging: "privatization" is still a dirty word, when it comes to Medicare. At least, if you can judge by Speaker John Boehner, who says that the Republican plan to replace Medicare with vouchers that can by used to purchase private insurance is not privatization.

"There's no privatizing of Medicare," Boehner said. "We're transforming Medicare so that it'll be there for the future." A reporter asked Boehner whether his members support the GOP budget, which includes a plan to give seniors vouchers to buy insurance in a private marketplace. He offered less than a full-throated defense.
"I think it's an option worth considering," Boehner said. "I think our members are in full support of us continuing to march forward with our budget."

The less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of the privatization plan from Boehner might have a little something to do with this:

The most popular position in the GOP’s coalition isn’t that Medicare needs a complete overhaul, as Ryan thinks. It isn’t that it needs major changes, or even that it needs minor changes. It’s that we shouldn’t try and control costs at all. That’s not true for the Democrats’ coalition, where both “minor changes” and “major changes” beat “no cost control,” and it’s not true for the independent coalition, where “minor changes” at least tie cost control.

While Republican politicians and members of Congress might not need Medicare, or know anyone personally who needs it, plenty of regular-people-type Republicans do. And even they don't want to see the program changed.