Sebelius says under Paul Ryan's plan, seniors 'will run out of money very quickly.' Sebelius: 'Die sooner' with GOP plan

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the Ryan Medicare proposal will lead to early deaths among seniors.

During testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, she said seniors with expensive illnesses — such as cancer — would “run out of money very quickly.”


She continued, “If you run out of the government voucher and then you run out of your own money, you’re left to scrape together charity care, go without care, die sooner. There really aren’t a lot of options.”

The committee’s Democrats began the hearing by firing a shot at the Ryan plan, releasing a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research that found seniors will need to save an additional $182,000 in order to cover increased health costs if it were to become law.

During the question-and-answer period, New Jersey Democrat Rob Andrews said that, on average, seniors have less than $100,000 in their 401(k)s.

“If you’re a senior on Medicare and ... you emptied out your 401(k), it would only pay for less than half” of the new out of pocket costs, he said.

In the first half of the hearing, Committee Republicans did not rise to support the Medicare privatization plan passed last month, instead focusing attacks on the Affordable Care Act.

But later in the hearing, Indiana Rep. Larry Bucshon shot back at the secretary by accusing her of lying about the plan’s details.

“Are you aware [the Ryan plan is] designed after the same type of plan that members of Congress currently have, and would you call that putting members of Congress onto the open market?” he said. “Clearly it is deceptive to say to the American people that it’s putting seniors into the open market when, in fact, you know that that’s not true.”

Sebelius stood by her comments, adding that, unlike the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, the federal government would not be the “generous partner” in insuring seniors that it is for federal employees.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:06 p.m. on May 5, 2011.