Joseph Rago: The Forgotten History of Ryan's Medicare Reform

WSJ ^ | 8-14-12 | Joseph Rago

[TurboZamboni]

Mr. Ryan's critics claim to be technocrats, but they retain more faith in central planning than the empirical evidence supports. Their objections are really false fronts for their anti-market ideology of price setting and government control.

The reality is that the status quo that Democrats pretend is an alternative to "privatization" is already irretrievably gone and Medicare is already changing, for worse or for far worse. The Affordable Care Act pegs Medicare spending to the growth of the economy plus 1% with the crude across-the-board cuts to providers identified by Mr. Foster. A bureaucratic panel of 15 men and women will enforce the cap by decreeing how medicine should be practiced and how doctors and hospitals are organized.

Premium support is the only other plausible health-care choice, as well as the only way to pay for the promises government has made while still maintaining economic growth. The model has been tested in the real world, and it works: Not only does it already apply to members of Congress, it looks a lot like Medicare Advantage, whose private plans cover nearly a quarter of seniors, and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit, whose premiums, amazingly for health care, won't increase by even a dollar next year.

[johniegrad]

It’s the best plan out there so far but how do you communicate the realities to the bumper sticker mentality? That will be the challenge facing the lies of the left.

[TurboZamboni]

3 things every voter needs to know about Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform plan — in 100 words

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2918004/posts

[gov_bean_ counter]

The lies of the left are so many and so perverse it would take all the resources of a SuperPac just to keep up with and respond to them.