Bachmann: ‘How we get there’ on Medicare is open for discussion

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said Sunday she wasn’t wedded to the Medicare cuts outlined in the House GOP’s budget proposals and that she is worried about shifting the cost of healthcare to seniors.

“It isn’t that we’re saying that we don’t want people to have that healthcare; it’s will there be a better way to fund it,” Bachmann said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“One position that I’m concerned about is shifting the cost burden to senior citizens. Seniors are saying, ‘Look, I’m not in a position to handle that,’ and I share that real fear,” she said.

House Republicans before the spring recess approved a 2012 budget blueprint from House Budget chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that includes a proposal to replace Medicare with subsidies for private coverage. Democrats, armed with estimates from the Congressional Budget Office that suggest seniors over time would end up paying considerably more for their care under the Ryan proposal, have been hammering away at the proposal for the past several weeks.

Bachmann voted for the Republican Study Committee budget proposal, which calls for more severe spending cuts than the proposal put forward by Ryan. 

But she said her vote does not mean she wants to enact the reforms put forward in the proposal.

“Remember what both of these bills are. They are not pieces of legislation, they’re aspirational documents, which means these are goals that we are trying to come toward,” Bachmann said.

“What I’m saying with that vote is that we have to make decision, we’re not saying every single decision in that bill — that aspirational document — will be the final result. What we are saying is that we have a conviction,” Bachmann said. 

Bachmann is considering a presidential bid in 2012 but said she would not make a decision until June.