Yuval Levin at NRO concisely explains how the Ryan-Wyden plan for Medicare would work. (Ron Wyden, co-author of the plan, is a liberal Dem Senator from Oregon.)
The government would provide a premium-support payment equal to the second-lowest bid for a package of health-care insurance benefits to a senior in a given region of the country. All competing insurance companies would know what the package of benefits the government was saying it would pay for were. If the senior chooses that second-lowest bid, voila, the package is paid for. If the senior chooses the lowest bid, he pockets the difference. If he chooses a higher bid, which he or she might do for any number of reasons, such as being more comfortable with that insurance company's track record of providing maximum value, or wanting features from a health-insurance policy above and beyond what the government is willing to pay for, he pays the difference.
It still involves the government, of course, but the free market is setting the prices and encouraging competition. Costs could be driven down to the point at which government involvement would wither away from no longer being necesary.
But are the seniors wrong and even immoral "sheep" as you like to call their ilk for not wanting to hear that it’s going bankrupt? We want to hear, like you hawkish types often cry into battle that victory will be ours. IT's not that we don’t want to think about changes to it. As the writer recognizes, "the politics of Medicare argue strongly against any kind of solution." Keep it the same for the beneficiaries or make it better, that's the ticket. Hah! Of course you want us to swallow your bitter pill so you can spend elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThat's an utter falsehood and you know it. We don't want to spend one penny elsewhere. The whole point is to shrink government - eventually to the scope of nothing but its Constitutionally specified functions.
ReplyDeleteThere is no other plan besides Ryan - Widen. None.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is another plan and that is the plan that our generation sustained for our grandparents and parents. That plan needa to remain in place. As for you calling me a liar, well, I don't know, perhaps I am ignorant and, if so, I am certain you will often ungraciously point that out to me. If we had a universal plan such as what the Canadians and Israelis you so greatly admire, even the VA plan, but wait, those great Americans earned their retirements, right? My wife and I have worked as hard as any Repubican and saved considerable sums to augment our social security and medicare is an expected benefit, not an entitlement that we also paid into. Many of us boomers may be reinventing retirement but could we be allowed to eventually stop working and enjoy a modicum of financial security without the overriding fear that medical expenses (and come they will, if only for a tune up, albeit expensive ones like multiple bypasses, hip and knee. replacements and the like) without fear of having to be buried in some potters field? Perhaps it's karma for protesting the Viet Nam war. Whatever, Paul Ryan is a much more reasonable gentleman than you are and if he becomes my vice president, well, he is my vice president. He's from the Republican party and he's here to help me help myself. I can read too and have read the same books you and he have. And I don't buy Newtie's and apparently your view that your side is the only one offering solutions with only lies from the other side. I know you have declared another war but I really don't think Mitt and Paul have. Perhaps in less than 3 months they will be ours and not just yours. Kumbaya brother.
ReplyDeleteThis country is broke. It's so broke it can't pay attention. There is no Social Security money for your children to count on. Actually, there is no money for you and me, but the current formulas can guarantee us outlays done with treasury bonds bought mostly by foreign governments, but it wouldn't take much for that house of cards to collapse. Alas, even with that, any money at all begins to dry up very soon.
ReplyDeleteThere was a huge surplus. It is still supposed to be solvent untilb 2030. Your side never wanted it or Medicare in the first place so how can we trust you to fix it? Maybe that's. It, Mistrust. It's epidemic in this country and the world today. Tis whai it is. We can cooperate enough to land a probe on Mars but we cannot figure out how to insure our people. Poly sci vs. Math.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the job of "us" collectively as a nation to "insure our people."
ReplyDeleteWell, excuse me but the VA, medicare and medicaid have been the law of the land for half a century and longer. And you know how many other countries, including your beloved beacon of freedom in the sand, that consider it their job. Now go back to your Hayek and your Friedman.
ReplyDeleteWho gives a flying diddly how long they have been the law of the land? They're bad and wrong, so it's time to get rid of them.
ReplyDelete