(hey, 4 more years baby, *4* more years! Keep them anti-Ryan messages comin'!)
Posted on 08/12/2012 10:42:36 PM PDT by Praxeologue
Anybody who believes Paul Ryan wants the government out of healthcare is falling for a typical Paul Ryan scam. He slices, he dices, he throws up some smoke and then he brings out the mirrors---and then he brings in the government.
Ryan's plan calls for keeping medicare intact for anyone who is 55 or older, then he gets slippery with his plan. For Americans currently under 55, his plan will give them a health insurance voucher as high as $8,000 per year. Government will get to decide what insurance companies are eligible to accept the vouchers. Ryan says all the major health insurers will be approved and accept the vouchers. Guess what that means? Edge to the major insurers.
Ryan says his plan will eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board,aka the Death Panels, a panel of 15 experts nominated by the president to recommend policies to cut Medicare costs, which is part of Obama's Affordable Care Act. But it is just slick packaging by Ryan to claim that his program does not include a death panel. With the government approving what insurance companies are approved to accept vouchers, the government will also by necessity have to approve the minimum services and types of services the insurances companies will have to cover. In other words, Ryan's plan takes the death panel into a deeper and darker backroom. I suspect it would eventually drive out of the healthcare business all insurers that are not part of the voucher accepting crowd--just like Obamacare will do
Indeed, the Ryan plan has a lot of other bells and whistles that Obamacare has. It requires insurance companies to insure people who have pre-existing conditions (which means someone, somehow, will be paying for these added costs heaped on the insurance companies for this) Ryan's plan also has adjustments on the size of the voucher based on wealth an income. It's socialist through and through.
It's not a surprise that ABC says:
Underneath the rhetoric, however, Ryan's plan to reform Medicare -- a central part of his 2012 proposal -- bears some glaring similarities to President Obama's health care plan.
Like his Price Stability bill, Ryan flashes and dances about getting the government burden off peoples backs, but when the smoke clears, Ryan is one big government dude.
Real healthcare reform would get government out of the sector, not set up some kind of voucher system that keeps government in the middle of healthcare for the benefit of the crony healthcare industry. The Ryan plan sets up such power centers that the evil will seek to take advantage of. It would result in higher costs, poorer quality treatment and less innovation.
Ryan is a real bad operator because his slick moves will make many think he is attempting to shrink big government. He isn't. He just has a shinier suit with a slicker spiel.
Whatever the faults of Medicare, the Ryan Plan, written by some of the same lobbyists who wrote Obamacare, is just a "market based" grab of public money for private interests, which will be more costly. The whole blaming game of the structural deficits on "entitlements" rather than Bush's tax cuts without spending cuts is just third rate economics and dumbed down math. Everything but "entitlements" has been "bankrupt" for decades, and both Dems and Repubs have been sucking SS dry for their programs and schemes. Tax cuts did not pay for themselves, as was advertised. The "Ryan Plan", really a Health Industry grab posing as deficit "reduction", openly embraces permanent deficits which in turn will mean continual credit downgrades and more debt. The picking of Ryan pushes the chances of a Obama victory and insures months more of upset denunciations of accurate descriptions of the Ryan Plan.. A majority of the people will be pinching their noses when they vote this year. Oh, did you know the Ryan Plan has a public option? Ha!
The more I consider the Ryan plan, now the Romney/Ryan plan, the more it looks like an attempt to deceive fiscal conservatives, get them out to vote in November, and then continue with the big government nanny state program.
Already read this article. It was tweeted by a few Ron Paul supporters then it went viral among the democrats. The dems are probably flooding Facebook with this article now as we speak.
Partisanship aside, the critiques of Ryan’s plan that I have read are authored by free enterprisers, not by big government types. You appear to be cautioning me not to provide fodder for the opposition. My concern is that the plan does not reduce federal government expenditures, leaving us hurtling toward the fiscal cliff at the same rate as would Obama. I am surely not going to remain silent about that.
Interesting thought about “Death Panels”. Now there will only be a committee of 15 that we will all know about and can criticize. Previously, every insurance company that could choose to reject anyone with any level of previous condition has been functioning as its own little hidden anonymous Death Panel.
The big difference is putting choice and price-based decisions in the hands of the consumer. That’s the first step in any sane cost reducing, free market solution.
A distinction apparently lost in this analysis.
... except for "the sick", i.e. pre-existing conditions, except for "the old" and except for "the poor". Their premium support will still be determined by the government. You can expect that millions will then vie to be treated as poor, old or sick. I fail to see the cost-reduction incentive.
True “free enterprisers” would herald introducing choice and competition.
The incentive is from introducing free market conditions. When the person consuming the product chooses the producer of the product who is competing with other producers of the same product. Unlike it is now.
How much do you think an insurance co would charge for someone with Type 2 diabetes, history of cancer, 75 years old, etc.? There will always be certain people who will be uninsurable. We can let them die or go bankrupt - and you can make that philosophical argument. Or, you can accept the political reality that a baseline safety net will be in place.
So it’s “shut up and join the RR train” or get tarred, is it?
That worked in Ryan's first plan, but not in his watered-down March plan.
It works in both plans.
You either move toward free market or single payer. That’s the choice in this election. Which direction will this nation take?
Medicare doesn't recognize pre-existing conditions or age.
Doubtless, the insurance companies competing for the voucher would be under the same restriction -- just as Medicare's supplemental insurances already are.
In essence, the Ryan plan offers a market-priced subsidy, but, if that isn't enough, then the government will pay more. How do you see that saving money?
The March Ryan plan was so vague that, unlike its prior iterations, it could not be scored by the Congressional Budget Office. It was tailored for the political season.
I welcome debate on how fast and how far when it comes to this nation’s severe economic problems.
But rear guard action now? No. We don’t have the luxury of that debate. Now is the time to fight, to join any and all allies in the fight.
You, and the smears you bring, are the kind of crap Jim Robinson has been warning about.
Just because someone has facts you do not like, tough shit. Don’t shoot the messenger!
YOU MUST LISTEN TO FACTS YOU DO NOT LIKE. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO RECOGNIZE WHEN THESE SCUM-SUCKING POLITICIANS’S LIE TO US. THEN WE HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE!
Neither Kennard nor I support Obama.
True, but we cannot afford Medicare in its current form, largely because it encourages waste and inefficiency.
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