Former LG Richard Ravitch is decidedly not on message with his fellow Democrats when it comes to the Medicare overhaul plan proposed by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

While most Dems have cast the proposal as an effort to “end Medicare as we know it” – a soundbite that worked particularly well in the recent NY-26 special election – Ravitch is taking a much more pragmatic, elder statesman approach.

“I don’t believe that that proposal is the devil incarnate,” he told me during a CapTon interview last night. “I think the issues that are raised – I don’t happen to agree with Paul Ryan…I think the Ryan plan has been mischaracterized in some respects.”

“…I think both parties have been guilty of overdoing the political advantages that each represent with their rhetoric. The Republicans with their anti-public employee rhetoric and the Democrats suggesting the Republicans want to destroy every institution that we have. And the truth it, ultimately, that there’s doing to have to be a compromise.”

Ravitch said he supports a “similar” plan proposed by former Clinton advisor Alice Rivlin. Ryan actually cited Rivlin when he rolled out his Medicare reform plan, (the two had both endorsed a 2010 overhaul proposal). But she subsequently said she doesn’t support his “version” of what they worked on.

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