As the dust from NY-26 settles, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty is not backing away from Medicare reform.“[Democrats] were using Medicare to scare people,” Pawlenty says. “Clearly, that was an issue they put into play, into ads, and it seems to have had some effect. That does not mean that we do not continue to move forward with that issue and many others.”
Though supportive of Ryan’s effort, Pawlenty is still is not ready to sign on to every detail. “Keep in mind, with all of the great work that Paul has done, and all of the heat he has taken, his plan does not balance the budget ten years out,” he notes. “It is good progress, but it still does not solve the problem in the initial ten years. It puts us on a better pathway forward.”
Pawlenty also has some differences with Ryan’s Medicare reforms, although he is very careful in stating them. “We are going to have our own plan,” he says. “You will stay in Medicare if you are over 55 under his plan, and you get premium support and an exchange if you are under 55. We are going to have several more options than that. We will feature not just premium supports, but payment reform. We are going to move the whole system to not just paying for volume of procedures, but for better health-care outcomes.”
Asked what about Ryan’s plan goes too far or is incorrect policy, Pawlenty resists going into details. “I have said many times that I admire what Paul has done as a matter of courage, as a matter of general leadership,” he says. “We are going to give people more choices than what I just described and allow people to pick what is best for them and their families in a marketplace setting. They will be incentivized, through pricing differentials, to pick the best plan for them.”
Asked whether a problem with the Ryan plan is that it constrains people too much by putting them all into a premium-support system, he again declines to say that there is anything wrong with Ryan plan. “One of our concerns is that we are just going to have a different plan,” he says. “It won’t just feature ‘Stay in Medicare’ or ‘Here’s a voucher.’ There is more to the health-care debate than just that, including payment reform, which we have done in Minnesota in pretty powerful ways.”
He is closely following how his rivals position themselves vis-a-vis the Ryan plan, though. “You are obviously going to have other candidates who take different views of this,” he says. “You have a number of people who said they would support the Ryan plan.”
If he had to choose between President Obama’s budget and Ryan’s, Pawlenty would undoubtedly line up behind the Wisconsin Republican. “That’s not what some of my competitors have said in this race,” he says. “Just look at the clips today.”