Paul Ryan's Plan: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

This article focuses on medicare/medicaid/social security reform proposed by Paul Ryan. My sources for this article are none other than the Paul Ryan website

www.paulryan.house.gov

and the website recommended by Paul Ryan for a better understanding of the his proposed reform

www.americanroadmap.org

Paul Ryan explicitly stated multiple times that his reform will not affect those who are 55 years old and older.

The people who had to take care of older folks who had suffer strokes or suffered from Alzheimer's desease understand the importance and necessity of medicaid. Insurance coverage for having a nurse visit the residence is very limited. Most families cannot afford the costs of a nurse which, back in the year 2000, was about $30 per hour. My sister took care of our mother when she had early symptoms of Alzheimer's Desease. I could state without exception that Medicaid (also known as Title 19) allowed our mother the kind of care she desparately needed. By the time we applied for Medicaid (in order to place our mother in a nursing home), she had lost her reasoning ability as well as her short and long term memory. My wife took care of her mom after her mom suffered a series of TIAs.

So when I talk about the value of our current Medicare/Medicaid system, I am talking facts. That's why when a right wing Tea Party member like Paul Ryan talks about Medicare/Medicaid Reform, it raises concerns.

Paul Ryan wants to combine Medicare Part A and Medicare Part B and give financial aid of about $11000 to help folks obtain private insurance. Medicare Part A covers hospital stays. Insurance for hospital stays will consume the $11000. Medicare Part B insurance is not nearly as expensive. However, the insurance folks would obtain would not be Medicare Insurance as it is known today. It would be private insurance which would cost far more than the current Medicare insurance. For lower income folks, this type of reform will do nothing less than wipe out the option to retire. One long hospital stay would still wipe out lifetime savings and lead quickly to bankruptcy.

If Paul Ryan had succeeded at repealing the Health Reform law, insurance firms would not have to cover pre-existing conditions and insurance firms would be able to drop people with cancer. In addition, the Health Reform law includes a maximum ratio of young/old insurance costs that helped hold down the insurance rates for elderly people.

Paul Ryan's plan is an attempt to wipe out Medicare disguised as an attempt to reform Medicare. It replaces one big government entity with another big government entity. It is enhanced by allowing insurance companies to sell insurance across state boundaries and by tort reform. But this competition does little for elderly folks without the protections included in the current health reform law.

The Medicaid plan is similar to the Medicare plan. This is another attempt to destroy the safety network that Ryan claims he wants to preserve.

Ryan plans to privatize Social Security by having working people invest their money rather than paying the Social Security tax. However, if a stock market crash like the one that occured at the end of George W Bush's term occurs, all those funds could be reduced by amounts comparable to the stock market losses in the 2008 recession. Furthermore the funds will be handled by the US Government thereby creating more big government. To boot, the people who opt for investment might have to pay back the Social Security system when they retire.

Now one would think that two political parties (Republican and Tea Party) that are so determined to lower the debt would not further deprive the Federal Government of badly needed funds via tax cuts. But in the case of the Republican Party and the Tea Party, the national debt is not that bad. It is only bad enough to use as an excuse to satisfy the Republican contempt for the poor.