NY Democrat Wins on Anti-Paul Ryan Message and Causes GOP Stress

It was only an election in an otherwise staid New York state US congressional district, but its tie to the entire debate on Medicare privatization has put this race and its winner — a Democrat — on the national stage. The Democrat challenger to the conservative incumbent was all but certain to wind up in the loser column, but running on an anti Paul Ryan message — she emerged victorious.

The results set off elation among Democrats and soul-searching among Republicans, who questioned whether the party should rethink its commitment to the Medicare plan, which appears to have become a liability as 2012 elections loom.

Quite an understatement. It was, perhaps, the most serious blow to the congressman’s push to overhaul Medicare by 2022. Over the last week, signals from other members in Ryan’s party have been building an abandonment scenario.

GOP presidential candidate New Gingrich blasted Ryan’s plan, calling it an experiment in “right wing social engineering”, only to retract from the intensity of those statements a short while later. Frosh Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) has also come out against Ryan’s proposals. Moderate GOPer Olympia Snow (R-ME) will now vote against it. Finally, an AP poll out earlier this week shows that most Americans apparently feel the same way that voters in NY-26 feel.

In the poll, 54 percent said it’s possible to balance the budget without cutting spending for Medicare, and 59 percent said the same about Social Security. Taking both programs together, 48 percent said the government could balance the budget without cutting either one. Democrats and political independents were far more likely than Republicans to say that neither program will have to be cut.

All of which, in advance of a Senate ‘no’ vote on the matter essentially assured, is causing the GOP more and more angst on this issue and how best to confront it in 2012. After backing this now unpopular Ryan plan, it’s time for the party to redouble its efforts on this, and other fiscal matters for election ’12. As the president’s war chest and approval ratings continue to increase in size and the GOP field for next year remains in floundering stage — it will be neat to watch, from a healthcare policy perspective, just what the GOP’s plans are now in the war on Medicare and health reform.