for our senior citizens, and I will lobby officials on the federal level to provide a Medicare drug benefit." (The U.S. Congress would pass legislation providing for Medicare prescription drug coverage - Medicare Part D - the following year.) In February 2012, in an address to the Detroit Economic Club during which he discussed his recently unveiled economic plan and federal budget proposal, Romney said that to help control government healthcare expenditures, as president he would seek to gradually raise the minimum age for Medicare eligibility. The change in eligibility would affect future Medicare beneficiaries who at the time of enactment of the rule change would be 54 years of age or younger; the eligibility age would be raised by one month per year, then eventually tied to life-expectancy. Romney named Representative Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate in August 2012. A year earlier, in June 2011, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives had passed a Republican alternative budget proposed by Ryan, with no Democrats voting for it. One controversial aspect of the proposal concerned Medicare; for those under age 55 as of its enactment, it would replace the existing Medicare system in which the government pays doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers fees for services rendered with a system in which the government would instead pay vouchers (also referred to as premium-support subsidies) to Medicare beneficiaries, who could then use their vouchers to either buy private medical insurance or to obtain coverage in a plan similar to traditional Medicare. Romney said that as president he would sign such a plan if it reached his desk, but he added that he would be putting forward his own plan before debating Obama. During an interview in August 2012, several days after choosing Ryan as his running mate, Romney said, "Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare, I think, is the same, if not identical -- it's probably close to identical." A 2012 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation said, in October 2012, that a hypothetical Medicare plan along the lines of Romney would raise premiums for nearly 6 out of 10 seniors. The Romney campaign noted that the study did not specifically model any proposal from either campaign. Chronic Lyme disease In September 2012, a mailer from the Romney and Ryan campaign indicated they favored a law regarding "chronic Lyme disease", a controversial and unrecognized diagnosis, that will provide "physicians