Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan: Medicare Assassin

As the United States Congress heads into the final weeks of debate on a national health care plan, Janesville, WI. Republican Paul Ryan is under careful scrutiny after attempting to kill Medicare last spring.

With national ambitions, Ryan is having a difficult time crafting a moderate political image in light of his ultra-conservative approach to health care.

It was Ryan who on April 2, 2009 authored and offered the Ryan of Wisconsin Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to the Congressional Budget for Fiscal Year 2010.

This substitute amendment, which received 137 Republican votes and no support from Democrats, was authored by Ryan. As reported by the Twin Cities' Star-Tribune, Ryan the

...top Republican on the House Budget Committee, called for eventually replacing the traditional Medicare program with subsidies to help retirees enroll in private health care plans. Current beneficiaries would keep their coverage and those 55 and older also would go into the current system...(emphasis added).

Thanks to Matthew Yglesias for his post last week, Republicans Against Medicare.

As we march forward in the efforts to fix both social security and the medical system, Ryan continues to champion systems of private individually managed accounts, which provide none of the efficiencies or protections of a larger system, which is designed to not only protect the individual, but also to maintain its overall integrity.

Ryan does not care that foolishly invested funds and high administrative fees will result in failed individual accounts that leave the rest of us taxpayers holding the bag. Ryan knows that there are billions of dollars to be made by the financial services industry with the dismantling of Social Security and Medicare.

UPDATE: Folkbum has a great point-by-point rebuttal of Ryan's many fabrications about the current House bill here.

Comments

[antpoppa]

From one society declined to another society declining.

Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.

Cicero

[Michael A. Shea]

A tip of the hat to Paul Ryan. He is wrong on the issues, but at least his opposition to health care reform is clearly linked to his longstanding opposition to Medicare. I credit him for consistency. Other opponents say they support Medicare, unable to see the contradiction in that.

The mystery is why Paul Ryan- so wrong on the issues- keeps getting re-elected. Progressives in the First Congressional District need to step it up.

[Brian]

Oxymoron: "robust" public option. If you've spent any time at pnhp.org you know this program cannot work and most of its parts have already failed in seven states.

the solution: single payer, a robust Medicare 2.0 for All.

[Jake]

Nice try: http://factcheck.org/2009/09/senior-scare-yet-again/

[Paul]

I love the gamesmanship going on around the Ryan position as Jake and others are in denial. Someone should put the question to Paul Ryan:

If your proposal was adopted does it mean that ten years after adoption, those who need health care at age 65, will not be enrolled in the existing Medicare program but will enroll in a program similar to your proposal for private health care savings accounts? Yes or No?

[edith stuessy]

love the Cicero quotation, too bad someone didn't whisper it in our most recent ex-President's ear every day upon his awakening...eddie spaghetti