Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill were more than miffed at Sen. Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) decision to join Republican Paul Ryan on a new Medicare reform plan. But Wyden says the negative criticism will subside once the plan is actually reviewed.
But that’s not likely in this hyper-partisan environment — and especially because it dilutes the attacks the DCCC and DSCC hoped to use (and will still use) against GOP candidates who had expressed previous support for the first Ryan plan earlier this year.
“There’s no question that when you try to break the gridlock and in this case for the longest running battle since the Trojan War, you stir a lot of passions,” Wyden told POLITICO. “My hope is in the days ahead that folks are going to read it.”
Not likely. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggested that the Wyden-Ryan plan would allow Medicare to “wither on the vine,” and White House spokesman Jay Carney said it was just another plan to “end Medicare.”