there is at least one "huge difference."

Under the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP), the government contribution rises at the rate of average premiums charged by private insurers. But Ryan would only have Medicare spending tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has historically not kept up with health care costs.

"Indexing the federal contribution to Medicare beneficiaries to the C.P.I. can thus be expected to shift an ever-larger share of the total health spending on Medicare beneficiaries from the books of government to the household budgets of these beneficiaries," Reinhardt wrote in May.

"It is fair to wonder whether members of Congress would ever pass a bill indexing the federal contribution to their insurance premiums only to the C.P.I. rather than, as now, to the growth in insurance premiums."

(H/T: The Hill, CNN)