The Washington Posts’ Jennifer Rubin is attributing the failure of the super committee to Democrats’ refusal to accept partial Medicare privatization and any cuts to the Affordable Care Act. It’s a meme first advanced by super committee co-chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and echoed by conservatives like James Capretta:

In this regard, nearly all of the mainstream reporting has taken for granted that ObamaCare is off limits from budget cutters. Reporters and the left punditocracy have declined to even recognize that the real “intransigence” was not on the part of Republicans (who offered up more revenue) but on the part of Democrats who insisted that ObamaCare remain pristine (despite the serial revelations that the plan is not unfolding as anticipated) and who refused respond with a serious counteroffer on tax reform.

The second issue revolves around Medicare. The Republicans last spring presented Rep. Paul Ryan’s premium support plan. Then in the supercommittee they offered the Rivlin-Domenici plan that would have allowed seniors to opt for traditional Medicare. But, as Capretta points out, the Democrats’ answer is to keep traditional Medicare and simply limit fees to providers, a recipe for shortages and denial of care.

First, it’s unclear why unwinding the Affordable Care Act — which reduces the deficit by billions of dollars — would make for good policy if you’re truly interesting in lowering the federal debt. That kind of thing would only be of use to partisans seeking to squash the President Obama’s signature accomplishment during an election year. Anyone truly interested in reducing health care spending should be looking for ways to ratchet up the cost savings already included in the law, rather than tear them down. (As is, the ACA is “projected to reduce aggregate spending by 6 percent over the 10 year period.”)

And as for the Medicare privatization plan, if Rubin or Capretta can explain how the ever-depreciating premium support proposal isn’t a cost shift to beneficiaries, I’d like to hear it. For the time being, Democrats — who themselves offered billions in Medicare and Medicaid cuts — are fighting with Republicans to preserve the sequestration process in the the Budget Control Act. The triggers will apply to any mandatory spending not specifically exempted, meaning that health reform provisions like grants to states for establishing exchanges, the public health prevention fund, and mandatory funding for community health centers could all be vulnerable to reductions. How is that for “off limits”?

Today, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is announcing the creation of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science, “an effort aimed at converting basic discoveries into new cancer therapies.” The Institute is so significant that Gov. Rick Perry — who regularly praises Texas’ state-of-the-art cancer center and medical research facilities — is taking time off the campaign trail to appear at the announcement.

Interestingly, the center — as well as the University of Texas — is the beneficiary of millions of dollars in federal grants and funding — all of which Perry staunchly opposes and regularly condemns as symptoms of government largess. For instance, the Cancer Center received $1.2 million in state and federal grants in 2010 and $500,000 in fiscal year 2011, including $633,206 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The University of Texas also benefited from funding included in the Affordable Care Act.

Texas itself has also benefited greatly from health care reform, accepting more than $380 million in early grants and other aid from the federal health law and is currently “waiting for final approval of a new waiver from federal Medicaid rules that could allow the state to draw down an additional $12 billion in funds from the federal government.”

Seniors — the demographic most skeptical about health care reform — are already benefiting from provisions in the Affordable Care Act, the Associate Press’ Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar reports, as the law gradually closes the doughnut hole in Medicare Part D. The coverage gap is the result of a political compromise in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which created a gap in prescription coverage for seniors who spend more than $2,840 on medications this year. Beneficiaries are responsible for the next $3,600 in drug costs until they reach about $6,440 in spending.

The health law relies on money from the pharmaceutical industry to close the gap in coverage:

The “doughnut hole,’’ an anxiety-inducing catch in an otherwise popular benefit, will shrink about 40 percent for those unlucky enough to land in it, according to new Medicare figures provided in response to a request from The Associated Press. [...]

The average beneficiary who falls into the coverage gap would have spent $1,504 this year on prescriptions. But thanks to discounts and other provisions in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, that cost fell to $901, according to Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which handles economic estimates.

A 50 percent discount that the law secured from pharmaceutical companies on brand name drugs yielded an average savings of $581. Medicare also picked up more of the cost of generic drugs, saving an additional $22. [...] This year, the law provides a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs and 7 percent break on generics. Next year the discount on generics rises to 14 percent. When the changes are fully phased in, beneficiaries will still be responsible for their annual deductible and 25 percent of the cost of their medications until they reach catastrophic coverage.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that almost 1.8 million seniors have taken advantage of the discounts in the doughnut hole, saving more than $660 million on prescription drugs.