Quietly Burying The Ryan Unicorn Plan

It's not like the Ryan Unicorn Plan had any chance of passing the Democratically-controlled Senate or getting past President Obama intact, but after all but four House Republicans voted to end Medicare and replace it with a voucher program that wouldn't even guarantee health care coverage, they're now quietly hoping you'll forget about their little plan to destroy the social safety net.  That's not sitting too well with the Tea Party freshmen, who want to happily throw 90% of America under the bus.

Some members — especially freshmen from districts with steep re-election hills to scale — were upset to hear that the plan could be scotched after they had voted for the budget proposal and then invested so much hard work trying to sell it back home over the spring recess.

“I would be very disappointed if we didn’t follow through,” said Representative Joe Walsh, whose district lies in the Chicago suburbs. “We have spent, gosh, a month or two now trying to educate the American people to a pretty good reception. I appreciate the chairman’s notion, but I would continue to respectfully challenge him to get this thing through committee.”

Representative Bobby Schilling of Illinois said backing down now would be giving in “to lies and deceit told by the other side.”

“We’ve just got to address this problem,” he said. “Is it going to be perfect? No, but it needs to be addressed.”

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, said Thursday that the party was not backing away from the Medicare overhaul. But he said Mr. Camp’s view was a recognition of the “political realities that we face.”

Democrats said it did not matter if Republicans decided to jettison their Medicare plan because they had already voted for it as part of the budget.

“The Republicans are slowly realizing their plan to privatize Medicare is a political disaster,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat. “But until they renounce their vote for it, they are still going to own it.” 

It's that last part I have problems with.  The Republicans will only "own" wanting to destroy Medicare if the Democrats make them do so, and the Dems' record on doing things like that is abysmal at best.  This one's a gift wrapped dozen seats in the House easily, and quite frankly if the Demcrats continue to attack on this point for 18 months it could be worth enough to get the House back.

We'll see how this plays out.