WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders, fearing a political backlash from their proposed curbs in Medicare spending, are scheduled to announce a plan today that they hope will deflect some of the heat.
The plan is expected to include suggestions, aired over the past few days by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, that seek to separate the Medicare changes from the larger Republican effort to balance the federal budget.
A key feature of the effort is likely to be the creation of a commission that would recommend cost savings for Medicare, similar to a bipartisan group that designed an austerity effort for Social Security in 1983.
Republican leaders believe it will be easier for elderly Americans to accept higher premium costs and reduced benefits that may result from Medicare changes if they see the belt-tightening as necessary to save the program rather than just to shift federal priorities.
They stress that if no changes are made, Medicare is expected to go bankrupt by 2002.
Although Medicare is one of the fastest-growing programs in the budget, Mr. Dole told a Republican gathering yesterday that a proposal to slow Medicare growth by $250 billion or more over seven years is intended to keep the financially troubled program afloat. Republicans want "to preserve it, to improve it, to protect it," Mr. Dole said of Medicare.
Both Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich say they worry that President Clinton and the Democrats may convince Americans that the Republicans are raiding the highly popular health care program for the elderly to reduce the budget deficit or to provide tax cuts for the rich.
Mr. Clinton's chief of staff, Leon E. Panetta, leveled just such a charge yesterday in a letter to Mr. Gingrich.
"No amount of accounting gimmicks . . . can hide the reality that you are essentially calling for the largest Medicare cut in history to pay for tax cuts for the well-off," Mr. Panetta wrote.
"The over $300 billion in Medicare cuts over seven years -- the largest Medicare cut in history -- you are reported to be considering would be completely unnecessary if you did not have to pay for a seven-year $345 billion tax cut that goes predominantly to well-off Americans," Mr. Panetta added.
Framing the political debate over Medicare is crucial to the Republicans' success in their ambitious goal this year of producing a plan for wiping out the budget deficit by 2002. They need to find about $1 trillion worth of savings, and draft budget proposals in the House and Senate had targeted nearly one-third of that amount to come from Medicare.
But senior citizen lobbies have raised such a furor that some Republican lawmakers admit to having cold feet.
Haley Barbour, the Republican national chairman, met with congressional leaders on the issue yesterday. He has warned them of the political dangers of making dramatic changes in such a popular program.
"I think there is an over-reaction," said Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip in the Senate. "But there is a potential for Bill Clinton to demagogue on this. That could make it impossible for us to get anything done."
The Republicans' strategic decision so far is to focus on the need to restructure Medicare for its own sake. Republicans have also begun criticizing Mr. Clinton for failing to act on a report by Medicare trustees that warned of the program's impending insolvency.
"Not enough people are aware that Clinton's Medicare trustees have warned two years in a row that it's going broke," Mr. Barbour told reporters after a meeting in Mr. Dole's office yesterday.
House and Senate leaders could not agree yesterday on the details of their scheme for dealing with the delicate Medicare issue. Another session was scheduled today, while the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a public hearing on Medicare's financial problems.
Mr. Gingrich said Friday that Republicans would propose a major overhaul of the program that would encourage elderly Americans to choose less costly health care options.
The House speaker also called on Mr. Clinton to submit recommendations to Congress no later than May 15 to address the Medicare crisis and urged him to begin building a national consensus on how to make Medicare solvent.
Mr. Panetta responded yesterday that if the Republicans in Congress really want to work on Medicare, they should first pass a plan that explains how they plan to balance the budget and to pay for proposed tax cuts.
