50 Years Later, Republicans Still Trying To Kill Medicare Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed the obvious about Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it. The GOP plan to "voucherize" and inevitably ration Medicare would lead to future seniors paying more - much more - for health insurance. Of course, killing the wildly popular program which helped dramatically reduce poverty among the elderly is no problem for the Republicans. After all, they've been at it for 50 years.