Rep. Andy Harris takes Medicare budget debate to Berlin, Ocean City

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), above, answers questions about proposed Medicare cuts from George Benton, standing opposite, at Showell Elementary School on Saturday. OCEAN CITY TODAY/TOM RISEN (May 13, 2011) The future of Medicare and Medicaid is being decided, as Congress debates budget cuts green-lit by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) and the Republican controlled House.

Harris brought the budget battle to Worcester County Saturday when he spoke at the Clarion Resort Fontainebleau Hotel in Ocean City and at Showell Elementary School.

Harris’ keynote speech at the Maryland Republican Party 2011 Spring Convention at the Clarion focused on how health care and spending cuts would be key issues in the 2012 election. The congressman argued that President Obama’s approach on spending cuts was to “whistle past the graveyard.”

“There are only two ways to reduce the deficit: you either raise taxes or you decrease spending,” Harris said. “The president has led the American people to believe you can tax your way out of this.”

Harris defended the fiscal 2012 budget proposal introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and approved by the Republican controlled House of Representatives.

Part of Ryan’s pitch for broad spending cuts for the next 10 years is to privatize Medicare and Medicaid. Under the plan, state-controlled Medicaid systems would be given a block grant from the government to spend and Medicare recipients would be provided with fixed, lump-sum vouchers to purchase private health insurance.

A report released Tuesday by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation indicated that the budget proposal could cut Medicaid funding in Maryland by $24.5 billion, or 38 percent, from 2012 to 2021. The report also indicates that number is less than half of the $64.6 billion Maryland has access to for the next decade under the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, which was passed by the Obama Administration and would be repealed by the Ryan budget.

During a town hall meeting at Showell Elementary, Harris spoke in front of a Power Point presentation entitled “tidal wave of debt,” and touched on numerous areas for possible spending cuts where he argued the Obama Administration had fallen short, such as development of natural gas.

The auditorium was filled with senior citizens concerned about Medicare and, as with the numerous town hall meetings of 2009, the crowd reached pitched debate on health care issues. George Benton of West Ocean City was concerned about the costs for future generations and that costs could increase for existing beneficiaries within several years.

“The Paul Ryan bill will kill Medicare as we know it,” argued Benton. “These good people want their tax dollars to go toward their grandchildrens’ costs. We’ve been borrowing all this money from China to pay for the Iraq War and for Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthy.”

Harris, 54, told audiences in both speeches that the Ryan proposal would not affect retirement beneficiaries currently aged 55 and older. Harris said rolling back tax cuts on people who earn more than $250,000 annually would not be enough to close the deficit.

“We talk about protecting the middle class, but the middle class can’t pack up and move,” Harris responded. “If someone with that kind of money gets in trouble, they pack up their business and leave for somewhere else.”

Former Democratic Congressman Frank Kratovil, whom Harris defeated in the 2010 election, opined that seniors would pay substantially more under the plan and also called for an end to tax cuts for the wealthy.

“The voucher system they are talking about is remarkable,” Kratovil said. “That seniors would be able afford what they would be allowed to purchase from private insurers is ridiculous. Many of them probably have pre-existing conditions.”

The next stop will for the Ryan budget plan is the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) will soon introduce his own budget proposal.

Ryan Nawrocki, press secretary for Harris, said some of the town hall meetings Harris and his office had attended had asked for more spending cuts.

“Within nine years Medicare as it exists will be unsustainable,” Nawrocki said.

Obama’s aims to cut spending include taking suggestions from health care professionals to reduce wasteful spending in Medicare, along with negotiating better purchasing deals through the program and streamlining availability of less expensive generic drugs in the program, according to his April 13 speech at George Washington University.