Paul Ryan, the congressman from Wisconsin and the newly named Republican vice presidential running mate of Mitt Romney could see his Medicare blueprint become a polarizing part of the campaign. As much, some believe, as the health care overhaul by President Obama has been.

Ryan has a very strong reputation in Congress for his bold ideas to rein in the costs of health care and federal spending in general. His idea that has been his centrepiece is to steer retirees in the future to private insurance plans that have a fixed payment the government will give them that may or possibly may not cover the costs the current program does.

Ryan is the House Budget Committee chairman and the conservative congressman from Wisconsin calls the plan “premium support.” The Democrats called it s simple voucher plan. The plan by Ryan could possibly work some economists have said, but the details are what still have not been all ironed out.

Ryan said that his plan is to turn the responsibility of Medicaid to states and limit sharply the increase of future spending on the program that is used as a safety net. Between Medicaid and Medicare, over 100 million people in the U.S. are covered, touching almost every family in the U.S. in some form.

Romney has given broad support to Ryan’s ideas but has not said where he stands on any of the specifics of the proposals of his running mate. Because there are risks there, Romney has put distance, albeit gentle, but still unmistakable distance between his own agenda and that of Ryan’s budget proposals.