TPM: Ryan Defends Medicare Privatization As Strengthening 'Welfare For Those Who Need It'

[flpoljunkie]

(The quickest way to kill Medicare is to turn into into a 'welfare' program. Paul Ryan and his ilk understand this all too well.)

Ryan Defends Medicare Privatization As Strengthening 'Welfare For Those Who Need It'
Brian Beutler
May 16, 2011

Speaking in broad terms Monday before the Economic Club of Chicago, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) defended his controversial proposals to slash entitlement spending and privatize Medicare.

Though billed as an effort to revamp his widely criticized budget, Ryan avoided describing his health care plans in specific detail, eschewing even the friendly terms he and other Republicans have used to explain it since he first unveiled it earlier this year. Instead, Ryan reframed the entitlement cuts in his budget as "strengthen welfare for those who need it," and accused Democrats who have attacked his budget as engaging in class warfare.

The House budget would phase out the existing Medicare program and replace it with a new program to provide future retirees with private insurance subsidies, which would shrink in value over time relative to steeply rising health care costs. This stands in contrast to the fairly broad consensus among Democrats that health care costs are best reined in by altering provider incentives and placing some restrictions on government-financed health care services, while allowing Medicare to remain a single-payer program for all beneficiaries.

Ryan characterized this distinction differently.

"If I could sum up that disagreement in a couple of sentences, I would say this: Our plan is to give seniors the power to deny business to inefficient providers. Their plan is to give government the power to deny care to seniors," he said, according to prepared remarks.

more...

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/ryan-defends-medicare-privatization-as-strengthening-welfare-for-those-who-need-it.php?ref=fpa

[AtomicKitten]

1. Turd polishing.

k&r

[montanacowboy]

2. Welfare??????????

Welfare???????? does this friggin idiot realize we PAY for this our whole lives and THEN WE HAVE TO PAY FOR IT EVERY SINGLE MONTH AFTER WE GET IT?

SOMEONE NEEDS TO KNOCK THIS ASSHOLE'S HEAD WITH SOME FACTS THAT HE IS SORELY SHORT ON.

[flpoljunkie]

3. Too late. Ryan's head is packed with Ayn Rand's free market/you're on your own ideology

[xxqqqzme]

4. What does he call

HIS government provided health care?

Just curious.

[blueclown]

5. If only health care operated in this ideal "free market" they are proposing..

These assholes seem to think that the choice of health care providers by an individual is a business decision... that "inefficient providers" will go out of business. They seem to think there there is actually a marketplace where patients can compare prices between multiple plans.

Health care is not a decision where one operates on a cost-effective rationale... we simply look for the best care.

[flpoljunkie]

6. We are forced to work with health insurance companies who are in business to make money--not provide

health care. If we are to be required to buy health insurance from private companies, they need to be heavily regulated and off the New York stock exchange.