Medicare and the Republicans

There's an excellent editorial in today's New York Times:

John Boehner, the likely next House speaker, tipped his hand in late September, telling an audience at the American Enterprise Institute that he would push to “repeal the $550 billion worth of Medicare cuts; and let’s see how many votes that bill gets in the House and Senate.”

What Mr. Boehner has yet to explain is how he would pay for that $550 billion. Those savings are a major reason why health care reform is projected to reduce the deficit over the next two decades and to extend the life of Medicare’s trust fund for hospital insurance by 12 years, thus shoring up the very program that Republicans say they want to save.

...Now that the campaign is over, Americans should demand that Mr. Boehner explain his plan for Medicare. Specifically: What will he do to “rescue” Medicare, without driving up the deficit or weakening the trust fund?