Paul Ryan Conveniently Discovers the Patient, the People

U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican from Janesville, continues to discover 'the people.'

Ryan, who sided with big business and big lobbies for his entire congressional career, is now the champion of the folks on Main Street.

It was Ryan who attended the April 15, 2009 'Tea Party' in Madison, decrying government spending to a modest Capitol steps crowd after voting for the record stimulus spending package last fall.

It was Ryan who voted for the George W. Bush plan that deprived the federal government of using its bulk purchasing power in negotiating the price of prescription medications with the giant pharmaceutical companies. That decision increased the cost of health care to the federal government and taxpayers as well as health care recipients by tens of billions of dollars.

Now, Ryan, through the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel portal, enters the debate over heath care reform: Government puts itself, not patients, in control of care. While the statement is incorrect, what is more interesting is Ryan's observation that:

Right now, the nucleus of power lies with third parties - insurers, employers and bureaucratic administrators.

It is curious that for all these years Ryan never chose to take up the health care banner on behalf of patients in their struggle with the 'third parties.'

Ryan had a dozen years to fight for patients and consumers. So long as the battle was against the private sector lobbyists who supported his campaigns he was silent.

Now that reform is in the air, he muddies the waters by claiming to be the champion of the people.

Comments

[antpoppa]

Paul Ryan is the construction of organized, psychotic, murdering capitalistic thugs that have generated this current plague of menace in our society. I can only hope that future generations are able to see past the political rhetoric and disguise. If we, the public accept this Trojan horse and bring it inside our walls, we will be killed in our sleep.
This is my best attempt at civility.

[matt]

From the Shepherd Express:

So why is Congressman Ryan so worried about protecting the financial interests of insurance companies? Why is he so concerned that a public option would expose the gross inefficiencies and abuses of the private health insurance industry? Well, follow the money. According to Opensecrets.org, the insurance industry has been Ryan’s top contributor over the course of his entire career. Since 1989, Ryan has raised $475,401 from insurance interests. Add in the money from health professionals ($258,240), Big Pharma ($155,392), hospitals and nursing homes ($136,577) and health services/HMOs ($116,950), and it’s no wonder why Ryan’s happy with the status quo.

[Democurmudgeon]

Ryan absolutely loves the insurance industry. So much so, that he compares these inhumane monsters to "his daughter."

http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/06/rep-paul-ryan-compares-insurance.html