Jon Ward reports on today's Budget Committee hearing, the first one chaired by Rep. Paul Ryan. The hearing was supposed to be about Obamacare, but Van Hollen, former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, was intent on attacking Ryan's plan.

The attacks seem to have backfired:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat from Maryland, went on the attack against committee chairman Paul Ryan’s “Road Map” plan, which is a long-term proposal to make entitlement spending solvent. Van Hollen pressed Foster on whether Ryan’s plan would work, prompting Foster to point out that one of the biggest problems in health care now is that most new technology that is developed increases costs rather than decreasing it. “If there’s a way to turn around the mindset for the people who do the research and development … to get them to focus more on cost-reducing tech and less on cost increasing technology, if you can do that then one of biggest components of [increasing costs] turns to your side,” Foster said. “If you can put that pressure on the research and development community, you might have fighting chance of changing the nature of new medical technology in a way that makes lower cost levels possible.” Foster said: “The Road Map has that potential. There is some potential for the Affordable Care Act price reductions, though I’m a little less confident about that.”