My full reaction to Obama’s debt reduction plan is forthcoming on the Health Affairs blog. While you wait for it, I also recommend Jon Cohn’s piece on it, which ends with:
[Obama’s] plan to save Medicare (and Medicaid) is to reform the program gradually, focusing on changes to the way it pays for Medicare, rather than gutting the program.
As this implies, and my piece at Health Affairs will explain, Obama’s plan is as much a statement of policy as it is political positioning and contrast with his opposition. In fact, because nothing like it is likely to become law, it’s realistically more the latter than the former.
A fact sheet on the plan is here. The full details are here.
UPDATE: Ezra Klein goes deep into the politics of and behind Obama’s plan, also worth reading.
UPDATE 2: Here’s my full reaction (as if this writing).
