Fox Nation
FoxNews.com
8/13/2012
1. No one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way.
2. Traditional Medicare fee-for-service would remain available for all. “Premium support”—that is, government funding of private insurance plans chosen by individuals—is an option for those who choose it. No senior would be forced out of the traditional Medicare program against his will.
3. Overall funding for Medicare under the Ryan-Wyden plan is scheduled to grow at the same rate as under President Obama’s proposals. Is this “gutting Medicare” and “ending Medicare as we know it”? In reality, it’s the market giving seniors cheaper, higher quality choices they can take if they wish, with the traditional program remaining an option.
Read the full story at AEI-IDEAS.org
Related: Speaking of leadership…Ron Wyden Distances Himself From Paul Ryan, Says Mitt Romney Is ‘Talking Nonsense’
Also:
Obama Already Gutting Medicare; the Ryan Plan Will Bring it Back
Video: Romney, Ryan play offense on Medicare in 60 Minutes appearance
…This is the part that readers claim was edited out of the broadcast, which if true would be journalistic malpractice:
Ryan added, “My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida. Our point is we need to preserve their benefits, because government made promises to them that they’ve organized their retirements around. In order to make sure we can do that, you must reform it for those of us who are younger. And we think these reforms are good reforms. That have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late ’90s.”
Ryan’s plan doesn’t affect those already eligible for Medicare. In fact, one of the conservative criticisms of the plan was that he didn’t give current Medicare recipients the option to choose a private-insurance plan, as younger Americans will get once they become eligible. That’s a pretty newsworthy detail, no?
The Ryan budget proposes the partial privatization of Medicare by turning it into a premium-support system within a federal exchange, where insurance companies compete for business while meeting coverage requirements. That’s really no different than Medicare Advantage, which puts market power into cost control and gets the government out of paying providers over a period of several years. It’s not a perfect solution, as it maintains the third-party-payer system that interferes with pricing signals, which is the main problem driving the cost spiral. However, it’s as close as we can get to a good political solution, since there is absolutely no support for dismantling Medicare entirely, and it at least lessens the problems of price-signal opacity…
Obama Campaign Lies About Ryan Medicare Reform Will the press let them get away with it?
Today [8/11/2012], at 9:22 a.m., Obama campaign manager Jim Messina sent out an email blasting Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, Wisconsin congressman and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. “[Ryan’s] plan also would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors,” Messina wrote.
There are many reasons why Messina’s statement is tendentious, misleading, and false…
…the job of journalists is to provide context that politicians leave out. And when it comes to Medicare reform, the press does a pretty shoddy job of providing essential context that would allow an adult conversation about how the country can avert a fiscal crisis…
An article filled with facts, graphs, polls. Read the whole thing.
Glenn Beck: Paul Ryan pick shows Romney serious about fixing economy, shrinking government
…“This guy was selected because of his budget credibility. This to me signals that Mitt Romney is serious about fixing the economy, serious about fixing the budget, serious about cutting the size of Federal Government. That is tremendous news, tremendous news.”…
