This makes me sick with anticipation.
...Sen. Hatch referenced obliquely in his comments today on Capitol Hill.
“…there will be many Republicans who will be wary or possibly unwilling to move on phasing out Medicare unless they have at least token bipartisan cover provided by Democrats.”
If it’s only Republicans, I think they will have a hard time keeping their caucuses in line to take the plunge. If they can bring over a few Democrats though, they’ll feel much more confident about it. That’s the Democrats key strength here.
Calling Senator “Bipartisan Cover!” Carper’s unwillingness to speak out against Ryan’s plan to phase out medicare kinda makes sense now, doesn’t it?
The bonus kicker to all of this is that Hatch is very open about the fact that Medicare phase-out is going to be “needed” to cover the giant deficits that are going to be created by the Trump/GOP budget. Brilliant! Just the kind of excuse Senator Bipartisan Cover can get behind.
“I think we’re going to have to do that (phase out medicare). We’re going to have to make it better,” Hatch said. “So it will take care of people because the current system is not working.”
When asked if entitlement reforms were going to be necessary to accomplish the Trump agenda, Hatch said, “I think that is probably the understatement.”