Government health benefits are a popular thing, and, as Medicare and Medicaid take center stage in the debate over a 2012 budget, Republicans may find it politically difficult to spend less on them.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled a Republican budget plan today that would end those two programs as we know them. Medicare would be transformed into a voucher program, while Medicaid would become to a system of block-grants to states, which Ryan says will save a total of $1.12 trillion more than President Obama's budget proposal.
If voters think the proposed changes will take away benefits, they're not likely to be popular. At all.
A CBS poll this month showed respondents wanting to cut almost anything besides Medicare, as lawmakers and the president look to reduce spending:
While Medicare benefits are clearly established as popular, pollsters don't usually ask about Medicaid. Its constituency is different, but also the same: Medicaid accounts for 40 percent of all nursing-home spending in the U.S., according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies (CMS). So, while Medicaid covers mostly poor people and children, older Americans have a large interest in it too.