Paul Ryan: "Our plan is not to hurt CURRENT seniors..."

[Spock]

What Ryan meant to say was "If you're under 55, due to cuts in the budget, the little light at the end of the tunnel has been disconnected".

[Lux Interior]

Acer wrote:
I thought cutting costs was supposed to be a virtue?

Cutting costs is a virtue when the lazy entitlement bastards (i.e. poor people) are affected. When cutting costs takes money out of the hands of the noble insurance company CEOs, then it's not only bad, it's goddam un-American!

[$tevie]

Lux Interior wrote:
[quote=Acer]
I thought cutting costs was supposed to be a virtue?

Cutting costs is a virtue when the lazy entitlement bastards (i.e. poor people) are affected. When cutting costs takes money out of the hands of the noble insurance company CEOs, then it's not only bad, it's goddam un-American! You nailed it!

[michaelb]

I have read all or most of the major Ryan proposals; what was striking to me was how little actual detail they contained about how they planned to restructure medicare. But the core idea is very much like Obamacare: require the private purchase of health insurance by all seniors through regulated market based exchanges. Here is that same basic analysis by the National Senior Citizesn Law Center:

http://www.slate.com/id/2292901

[rgG]

I am almost 541/2, and I think this really sucks. I wholehearted agree that Medicare needs adjustments and improvement, but to make it go private is insane. The main reason, IMHO, that Medicare needs to stay as a single payer government run entity is because of the paperwork and claims issues. What I have seen with my aging parents and in-laws is a lack of understanding of insurance in general, and as they have gotten older, this has only gotten worse. If you make people in their 80's and 90's have to deal with the ins and outs and differences from one carrier to another it won't be pretty. At least now, all seniors have to do is pick a supplement plan and prescription plan and the rest is relatively straightforward, as opposed to dealing with a private insurance carrier.

If seniors don't have children or other younger family to help, I feel truly sorry for us all. Even though I have had to deal with my parents insurance issues for years, I do not want to think I am going to have to deal with this when I am elderly and less able. I also don't want to think I will have to burden my daughter with sorting through this for me.

To me it is really more about taking the worry burden off seniors than the money. I am willing to pay more, fine, just don't make me deal with the paperwork and vagaries of the insurance industry when I am old. I am also a lot less than thrilled that, if this is passed, I will be in the first group of guinea pigs. I have told my husband for many years that the only good part of getting older is that I might finally not have to worry about what insurance to buy, what is covered, how much will it go up every year, etc. Now they may be taking that one piece of mind away from me.

I really hope they don't pass this, but if they do, I hope it is well into next year, when I will be 55. Epic fail.

[Acer]

Much agreed, rgG. My parents are up in years, and while in their younger days they were very savvy with their finances, I've seen that sharpness erode with age. They just don't have the ability to keep up with the subtleties. Can you image the marketing blood frenzy that will follow seniors when thrown to the private insurance wolves?

[RgrF]

If I'd been subject to the strictures that the right wing as articulated by Ryan would imposed, I'd not be posting here, I'd be dead.

I suspect that is their real aim -- cull the heard!

[mick e]

Dead people don't vote.

[mick e]

er well... dead people OUTSIDE OF CHICAGO, that is...

[Lux Interior]

rgG wrote:
I am almost 541/2,

If you're 270.5 years old, I need to see a birth certificate!