What Is The Ryan Plan All About?
Stanley
Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
The need for effective Medicare reform is becoming
increasingly apparent. Both the public and providers do not like Obamacare.
The cost overruns for Obamacare are hidden
from the public but are becoming evident.
There is an ideological divide between policies
that work and policies that don’t work.
President Obama believes the only policies
that work are government policies that control providers, insurers, and
consumers.
There are multiple examples that have shown
that these policies have never worked. Government has never controlled spending
for any projects for myriads of reasons.
What makes President Obama think his
government can force the healthcare system to become more efficient and control
healthcare costs?
Price controls and restriction of access to
medical care will not work.
Entitlement programs have been fertile
grounds for fraud and abuse by all the vested interests including government
agencies.
Government should be of the people for the
people.
Government should level the playing field so
secondary stakeholders compete for primary stakeholders’ business.
I voted for President Obama because I thought
he offered this hope. He fooled me as he has fooled millions of other Americans.
President Obama has a cool, seductive
speaking delivery. He is general enough to make one think he believes in what
you believe but his agenda is central government control over all areas of life.
The agenda is the opposite of the individual
freedoms our country stands for.
None of President Obama’s policies have
worked in the last 3.5 years.
He has snuck in higher taxes on the middle
class for his healthcare bill and has not lowered healthcare costs. Healthcare costs have increased.
Americans are not dumb. They are beginning to
realize they are on the road to serfdom.
President Obama is using every dirty trick
known in American politics to attack Governor Romney and now Representative
Ryan in order to keep from talking about
his record on jobs, the economy, healthcare costs, the deficit and its meaning,
our National Security, foreign policy, energy, and immigration.
For some reason the traditional media is on
President Obama side. The result has been a loss of their audience by newspapers,
magazines, and network television.
America is in a fiscal crunch. Entitlement
spending is at the center of the fiscal crunch and must be reformed effectively.
“Medicare
is at the center of our fiscal crunch, with outlays that have grown about twice
as fast as the economy over the past decade, according to the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO)”.
The fiscal crunch is only going to get worse
as 76 million baby boomers retire in the next two decades.
The Medicare trust fund has been depleted by the
federal government borrowing from the trust fund. Over time and as unemployment
rises less Americans are paying into the fund. The government’s depletion of
the fund has occurred since the beginning of Medicare.
The Medicare premiums paid by seniors for
Medicare Part B is going to double in the next two years. This is a tax on
seniors on fixed incomes that no one is talking about and few can afford.
President Obama is expanding an entitlement
with Obamacare. It will accelerate the
consequences of the fiscal crunch.
The Ryan
plan can change the direction of Medicare and save it.
- No one over 55 years old is affected.
- People younger than 55 will have the option to choose
between traditional Medicare or premium support from government to pay for
competing private healthcare insurance plans. - Traditional Medicare is a defined benefit plan. The
government decides on the price
it will pay for medical services. - Ryan’s plan is a "defined contribution" plan. The
government decides on an amount of money ("premium
support") to provide to individuals to buy private insurance of
their choice. - Consumers will choose from an approved set of competing
private insurance plans along with traditional
Medicare. - There is an open enrollment period each year, allowing
people to choose either of the
plans.
The goal is to force the healthcare
insurance industry to compete for patients
as well as give seniors the right to choose the most appropriate plan for
their needs.
The Ryan plan allows competition among
in the private sector which will increase efficiency and drive down
costs.
President
Obama is scorning this system as a “voucher system.”
Nonsense!
Once
again President Obama is obfuscating the truth with a sound bite.
Americans
55 years old and younger have paid into the system all their working life jus
as senior 55 years and older have. The “premium support” is not a free give
away as are food stamps.
Premium support is determined each year by the government
calling for competitive bidding by the healthcare insurance industry.
“ The government would then provide seniors
in each region of the country with a "premium support" equal to the
second-lowest bid in that region, or one equal to the bid of the federal
fee-for-service Medicare program — whichever is lower”.
Seniors could choose the traditional Medicare, since the
government would still contain a package of required benefits that would
constitute its comprehensive insurance coverage, just as Medicare does today.
Seniors would be guaranteed freedom of choice. A private
healthcare insurance option would equal the “premium support” payment.
The premium of the private insurance might even become
cheaper than the Medicare premium seniors would have to pay.
The Ryan plan would allow the healthcare insurance
industry to compete with Medicare.
The healthcare insurance industry could be forced to
lower its net profit by the competition just like it has occurred in other
industries. The competition could also force increase efficiency and quality of
product.
Tort Reform and fraud and abuse are not addressed in the
Ryan Plan yet.
The Ryan Plan is a good start to change from central
control to individual choice. It I not there yet.
Presidential candidate
Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan as running mate has made Romney the good guy in the
Medicare issue.
“ It's
President Obama who has put Democrats in the position of being the party that
is cutting current seniors' benefits, rationing care (thanks to the IPABs), and
letting the program collapse as it becomes unsustainable.”
If
you're a senior now or in the future, Democrats are offering you nothing except
a grim, mean, rationed future when it comes to medical care.
It's the
Republicans who are offering hope for a sustainable Medicare future with
freedom of choice.
The
Wyden–Ryan proposal outlines a strategy for Medicare reform that harnesses
market forces to control costs. It provides a real alternative to the top-down
controls favored in the Obamcare.
Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden have defined the
policy parameters that could be the basis for real Medicare reform in 2013.
Amazingly,
the Washington Post and liberal healthcare policy wonks are starting to think
the Ryan Plan might be a good idea.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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