House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan will unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program. The Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would offer traditional, government-run Medicare as an option for future retirees along with a variety of private plans. Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies ? creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.
