Paul Ryan's Medicare Mastermind: The Plan Won't Work

Henry Aaron, Inventor Of Paul Ryan's Medicare Reform Concept, Explains Why It's Wrong (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON -- The co-creator of the concept that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is relying upon to reform Medicare no longer thinks it will work. Henry Aaron, now of the Brookings Institution, got the chance to tell Ryan exactly why at a recent Capitol Hill hearing.

Aaron and former Urban Institute president Robert Reischauer came up with the idea of "premium support" in 1995, after the failure of then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's bid to reform the health care system.

The basic idea is simple: let people pick their health insurers in the private market, subsidize the premiums, and competition will drive down costs. That's the theory behind Ryan's plan, recently endorsed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in a white paper the two wrote.

It differs from Aaron's original vision -- in part because it has fewer protections for beneficiaries -- but the essential concept is the same. Aaron said this isn't the time to test it out.

"In the years since Bob Reischauer and I put this Idea forward, I've changed my mind," Aaron said at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee last week.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/0 ... 66826.html

Wow... Even the guy that helped Ryan "invent" it thinks he's bat-sh*t-crazy. Pretty bad when your own "mastermind" bails out on you. I guess another Kool-Aid drinker has seen the light. Screwing the middle-class and poor with phony austerity still doesn't add up to anything but making sure the rich get more. It doesn't save the budget, and it doesn't do anything but screw the seniors, and the soon-to-be-seniors.

Congratulations. Just keep doin' what yer doin'... Another demographic is going to firm up that the GOP has nothing to offer but disaster.

PLEASE, Mitt--Keep endorsing the Ryan budget. I want to see it hanging around your neck...And your wife's neck...along with that $1000 t-shirt...

The CBO is now saying Obama's Medicare plans are going to be much more than Barack originally claimed. And the fund will go bankrupt years sooner.

At least Ryan is trying to reform the system, Barack is playing a game of chicken and the cliff edge is closer. Lucky him, he gets to bail out while leaving the Medicare program crashing on the canyon floor like Thelma & Louise's T-Bird.

Yeah, at least Ryan is pushing a plan that is known to be disaster before it gets off the ground. And Obama's plan is already covering a Republican Senator's 23-year old daughter's insurance coverage NOW, and the CBO still says it will save about $30 Billion (even with the adjusted numbers) over the next 20 years. "Only 30 billion"? ... Yeah, and what you get is EVERYONE with pre-existing conditions covered, adults & children, Seniors preventative care covered, children covered on parent's policies from 18-25, etc., and everybody covered in SOME way, so that your tax-dollars don't pay for their coverage in the emergency-rooms....

Yeah, at least Obama is ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING instead of putting forward cockamamie plans that won't work, and screw seniors and the middle class. Imagine my surprise....

LadyJazzer wrote: . . . and everybody covered in SOME way, so that your tax-dollars don't pay for their coverage in the emergency-rooms....

What the hell? It's still your tax-dollars paying for their emergency room visits - it's simply $1.5 Billion fewer of your tax dollars paying for their emergency room visits - a whopping $18.00 savings for a family of four per year over what they are now paying for their emergency room visits. Where, exactly, do you think the "insurance" money comes from LJ? It comes out of the tax-payer's pockets because the people that would be required to buy insurance are taxpayers.

Yep...They're taxpayers... And that's about as relevant when it comes to purchasing insurance as boobs on a boar. And I'll bet you still think that being required to purchase auto-insurance by the state is a "tax"? But in your "sovereign citizen" mind, the fact that providing health insurance for yourself and your family at the national level is a "tax"???



yeah, rave on...

No, I am required to acquire auto-insurance only in the event that I voluntarily choose to drive an automobile on the publicly financed roads. The minimum level of insurance that I purchase doesn't cover me at all - neither my property loss nor my medical bills - should I cause an accident. The insurance I purchase is to protect the other members of society from being harmed by my actions. Not even the State mandates that I purchase automobile insurance which covers my injuries and my property. Got another fallacy you'd like me to dispel for you today?

yes, and the amount of insurance that would be required to be purchased by the uninsured would be to protect the other members of society from having their tax dollars paying for the emergency care in emergency rooms, harmed by your actions of not being insured.

Yep...That's enough dispelling for one post. If I needed more useless bullsh*t, you'd be my Go-To Guy.

But none of that has ANYTHING to do with the fact that Paul Ryan's budget is a total charade...does it.

Great deflection, though.

Which the auto insurance example you cite also fails to do. That insurance that I am required to purchase in order to be in compliance with the State laws will not protect the society from having to pay for my medical bills if I am injured in an accident. Thus it doesn't protect the other members of the society from having their tax dollars pay for my emergency room visit, even though I have purchased the required insurance to drive the car. Nor will ObamaCare for that matter, even if it miraculously survives the challenges on its constitutionality. I can pay the penalty for not purchasing health insurance and still have the society pick up my emergency room costs and harm them by not being insured, right?

If you don't want what you deem irrelevant discussed in the thread, then I suggest you stop introducing elements into the discussion that you later wish to dismiss as being irrelevant to the discussion.

Using force of law to compel participation in commerce is not a power that was delegated to the Congress. It really is just that simple. Congress can't require you to purchase a car to prevent the taxpayers from taking a bath on the federal subsidy of public transportation. It can't require you to purchase disability insurance, it can't require you to purchase life insurance, it can't require you to purchase debt default insurance, it can't require you to obtain and fund your own pension program to save the taxpayers from having to subsidize your golden years with the levy on their wages for your Social Security. It can't compel participation in commerce.

FredHayek wrote: The CBO is now saying Obama's Medicare plans are going to be much more than Barack originally claimed. And the fund will go bankrupt years sooner.

At least Ryan is trying to reform the system, Barack is playing a game of chicken and the cliff edge is closer. Lucky him, he gets to bail out while leaving the Medicare program crashing on the canyon floor like Thelma & Louise's T-Bird.

Exactly right. I don't think Ryan's plan is the right way to go, but at least he threw it out there for analysis.

Medicare as designed now is clearly on an unsustainable path and will fail miserably. The Dems have no plan except "kick the can".

And I should care about the opinions of neo-fascists because . . . . . . . .