Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has all but declared war on both Medicare and Social Security and does not seem to care at all that 85% of the American public does not want those programs touched in any way. But understanding Paul Ryan is not difficult at all. Ryan vigorously opposed Obama´s health care Bill and has many times pledged to end even the watered down version. The original bill proposed health care for all on an equal basis and would not have required a tax increase to pay for. It would have, however, put severe price controls on both the medical and private insurance industries and put them into competition with the US Government. Ryan had no interest in the benefit that such a program would have given to millions of people however. His sole interest was in protecting the status quo that has Americans paying more for health care than any other developed nation in the world.
Ryan tried to eliminate Medicare last year by turning it into a voucher program. This means that the government will issue vouchers for a small percentage of medical expenses and seniors would have to use these to negotiate with private insurance companies. The plan was met with overwhelming resistance from voters in both parties and faded quietly in the background for several months. Ryan was not skulking away however, he was merely rewriting and recruiting a Blue Dog Democrat, known for siding with the Republican agenda, to support him on the Bill. But experts are saying that this new Bill is not different in essense from the old bill and even works out better for the insurance companies because it allows them to cherry-pick the healthiest, wealthiest seniors.
But not surprisingly when we look closely at Ryan´s new plan, attached to the new budget, it really appears to be remarkably like Obama´s Affordable Care Act. Not surprisingly because every aspect of what Republicans call “Obama-care” is are actually ideas promoted by Republicans for decades. Mitt Romney actually passed an identical plan when Governor of Massachusetts and was fully supported by National Republicans. The big difference between the plans is that under Ryan´s plan only seniors would be covered and insurance companies would be subject to little or not oversight or regulation. More and more health care workers, like nurses, lab techs and pharmacy techs, would be out of a job as the medical industry would downsize in response to higher insurance rates and less federal subsidization.
The Republicans were not concerned with Universal Health Care, or even health care reform. Their entire objections were based on protecting the health insurance industry. Under the Affordable Care Act, even the watered down version, insurers were not allowed to refuse coverage and children could remain on their parents policy much longer. Basically the new law stops the insurance company from “cherry-picking” only the healthiest while leaving the rest uninsured. Ryan´s new attempt is simply starting to redefine the argument with Medicare and if this Bill passes it can be used as precedent in future attempts to get true Universal Heath Care.
Ryan and other Republican leaders in Congress are in a panic. Beginning in November of 2010 they have risked the entire identity of the Party in an attempt to make the President look like a failure. On at least three different occasions they have moved to actually add to the deficit and trash the economy simply to keep things bad and then blame the President. The recent resistance of the Party to pass even a two month tax cut for wage earners after fighting for an unpaid for tax cut for millionaires exposed the Republican Party for exactly what it was. Recent news from the Department of Labor that unemployment rates are now below 8.5 and still falling does not bode well for Republican chances in November. This is a party that has spent the last 3 years attacking the President, who despite these attacks he has accomplished a great deal, for completely political reasons.