WE MUST BE MISSING SOMETHING:

Democrats are already focusing their protests on the big changes Ryan proposes for Medicare, starting in about a decade. But it's not the draconian outline Ryan offered last year, which would have replaced Medicare with insurance subsidies for the elderly that probably wouldn't have kept pace with the rising cost of medical care. The new plan, developed with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), would preserve Medicare as an option but have private insurers compete with it for customers.

More problematic are Ryan's proposals to require states to pick up a growing share of the cost of Medicaid, a joint federal-state health insurance program for the poor, and to limit federal spending to about 20% of the economy, which eventually would force painful trade-offs between honoring the increasing obligations to retirees (in the form of Social Security and Medicare benefits) and maintaining other federal programs. 

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