Understanding Paul Ryan's Budget Plan
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-08-15/understanding-paul-ryans-budget-plan
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has led to new interest in the Wisconsin congressman’s budget. In its latest form, the Ryan plan changes Medicare from a system of guaranteed payments for seniors to one that uses “premium support” credits. These vouchers may be used to purchase private insurance or to join traditional Medicare. The Ryan budget also cuts Medicaid, keeps the Bush tax cuts and streamlines the federal tax code. Critics say it will end Medicare as we know it. Supporters say reform is necessary to save the program from bankruptcy. Diane and guests discuss the Paul Ryan budget plan and what it means for the future of federal entitlement programs.
Guests
Jared Bernstein
senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and former chief economist and economic policy adviser for Vice President Joe Biden.
Mary Agnes Carey
senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News.
Grace-Marie Turner
president of the Galen Institute, a research group focusing on free-market health care reform and tax policy.
Damian Paletta
reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
Comments
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All the T-Party lies about Medicare put aside,the Ryan plan cuts Medicaid by another 25% to start. On an earlier program about Medicaid,and the realization that 3 in 4 seniors in extended care facilities are on Medicaid,how can someone be so heartless? WOW ! Talk about throwing Granny and Gramps over a cliff. Here in Ohio Governor Kasich has already cut Medicaid.Now nursing staffs are at bare minimums,and the patients are neglected,and even abused by overworked and overextended staff. Many were sent home to families unequipped to handle this responsibility,given today economics. Kids come home from school to empty households because of the destruction of the American wage earner. Now,families face tough choices, quit their job,or take care of family,while not receiving the benefits they paid a lifetime to receive.
These so called Christians even cut funding to Hospices. Even people on their death beds cannot escape this monstrous inhumanity.DESPICABLE !
Don`t forget the broken promises to the military.The V.A. will again be targeted for draconian cuts. Walter Reed scandal,all over again.
All these cuts to allow the RR Richie Rich boys to cut their own tax liability to 1%. Hey why not? Fox News sock puppets still believe "Trickle Down" works for the Middle Class.
The liberal ruts are so deep here I find it highly unlikely the Obama train will lose any steam here ever no matter how damning the facts are. We have only lived with Romney's VP pic for a few days and are already seeing very good results. I am confident that Paul Ryan will set the record straight and send the liars packing quite easily, he has a good plan that has found considerable support among the more sensible in the democratic party. Contrasting Obama's health care plan that cuts 700 billion from medicare already should Obamacare not be repealed, to pay for Obamacare and has already tripled in it's estimated cost according to the CBO and in the end covers tens of millions less people than promised, it's a boondoggle of epic proportions and will crash all government and much of the private sector health care programs. Yes I'm quite confident the truth will win out this time despite the truly dirty campaign run by the president.
I almost feel sorry for all the conservatives who have been programmed to believe that Conservatism, and that great American, Willard Mitt Romney will win the next election.... if only these lowly tea party soldiers will just hold their noses while visiting the Diane Rehm Show website, and convert a few liberals. But then I start laughing. For starters, you sound like you're trying to convince yourself. And you're certainly not fooling anyone else. the Ryan budget will cost you at least the Presidency, if not the House and Senate, too. Seniors are not going to vote for having their entitlements slashed.
Jim Gamble wrote: "Seniors are not going to vote for having their entitlements slashed."
Ryan's medicare plan changes NOTHING for the age group 55 and older.
So I do get it, your counting on lying your way to victory. I for one was raised with higher moral values than that. Your mean spirited response also indicates a position of weakness and desperation.
“Mr. Ryan’s sonorous campaign rhetoric about shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to 'job creators' (read: the top 2 percent) will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse,” Stockman wrote in the op-ed, later adding: “Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices.”
Not to mention the fact but Ryan refuses to even discuss issues concerning his tax plan until after the election....or...er "in the light of day" as he desperately tries to obfuscate. (We do people think this guy is an intellect? Why?)
Actually saying the Paul Ryan is a GOP intellect is like being voted best blind sharpshooter.
No, seriously the time to come clean with voters might be now....but then they can't do that because people would become terrified when they realize that the Republicans plan to do exactly what we suspect they're gonna do. Destroy the country and give it all to the rich!
Fool Me Once:
I guess you missed this:
The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.
The Affordable Care Act closed the doughnut hole for seniors.
see Talking Points Memo " The Difference Between Obama's and Ryan's Medicare Cuts"
I don't know how you get around that. That's enough to buy a new Cadillac.
Jim Gamble, I guess you decided to cherry pick numbers to suit your purpose. We will have to assume you think Medicare is sustainable, it's not. Obama puts a bunch of garbage out there saying he will cut spending on services and not raise costs on patients. They never cut doctors fees or spending on drugs, they raise taxes and borrow money. Obviously someone is going to pay for all this and that is the tax payer. The $6500 figure is not an automatic increase. Obama offers smoke and mirrors while cutting over 700 billion from medicare. Read.
Obama and Ryan agree that Medicare per-beneficiary cost growth needs to be capped at per-capita GDP plus 0.5 percent. But they disagree on what to cut in order to get there.
Ryan’s plan under the Path To Prosperity would end Medicare as an insurance program that directly pays medical bills for the elderly. It would be replaced with a fixed subsidy which seniors may use to buy competing private and public insurance policies on an exchange.
If the value of the subsidy does not keep up with the growth of health care costs, seniors would make up the cost and pay higher medical bills. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.
Obama’s long-term plan to save Medicare, approved under the Affordable Care Act, is to set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, may only propose cuts to providers, not beneficiaries. Congress may replace the cuts by passing its own or with a three-fifths super-majority.
Job creator Jobs created thousands of jobs. (In China)
One major point of the Ryan plan is to create a sense of personal responsibility. Signing on the bottom line of a bill that you have no interest in the costs involved because you do not directly pay for them is a recipe for disaster. Forcing people to have an interest in the costs through a voucher system is a common sense solution for the personal responsibility that we must have. How many times have you heard people say it's paid for by insurance to indicate their lack of concern for the cost?
1)Ryan claims that he can affect growth by closing loopholes, but he has never specified which loopholes, and as we're learning from the Tax Policy Center, there aren’t enough loopholes to close to achieve the desired ends. So, you're stuck raising taxes on the middle class or destroying the government or both.
2)His plan to balance the budget is.... to not balance the budget. He's considered a "deficit hawk"…. but as he’s put his rubber stamp on all of the Bush Administration’s budget busting initiatives. Ryan's budget plan "projects an absurd future, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in which all discretionary spending, now around 12 percent of GDP, shrinks to 3 percent of GDP by 2050." This is not a plan!
3)Beyond that, of course, no one has any idea what programs Ryan would eliminate to achieve his "3 percent of GDP" discretionary budget dystopia. That's probably because the correct answer to the question is "nearly everything" and providing that answer would probably lead to voters outside of the Tea Party set to decide that he is insane.
INSANE!
fool me once makes many good points. Obama's "set up a panel of 15 Senate-confirmed experts tasked with issuing proposals to rein in the growth of spending if it exceeds a certain level"
This people is what you were being told about RATIONING and DEATH PANELS. Here it is, government says your to old for that treatment, take a pill instead!
There are two very different health care plans being offered, one puts the choices in the hands of the people (Ryan's plan) the other Obama's (Obamacare) puts the choices in the hands of the government. Which do you want?
Wasn’t Paul Ryan booed and heckled at town hall meetings when he released his Path to Prosperity budget plan to the public? How does providing a Medicare voucher address out of control healthcare costs? Private industry sees a goldmine in Ryan’s plan given the growth of the aging population. We should be doing everything we can to make geriatric medicine more accessible to those in need and that will develop cost saving efficiencies.
Fool Me Once:
Your rambling, indignant, incoherent response never refuted this:
The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.
I take it you're conceding the point.
If this is the best you've got then I think Ryan's plan is a stinker. In fact its a toxic stinker. Maybe you should think twice about carrying it around in your pocket.
"Personal responsibility" in the day and age of capitalist greed is like carrying a rabbits foot into the line of fire in Aleppo. And it will save you just about as well....
equalizer wrote: "How does providing a Medicare voucher address out of control healthcare costs?"
As written earlier it puts a burden on the patient to make sure the funds are used carefully and responsibly. Sweden for example uses very high up front costs (high deductibles) on the patient before the insurance kicks in, and it works beautifully. Do you read any of the other posts before you comment?
Jim Gamble wrote: "I take it you're conceding the point."
Not at all, your out of context information only makes my points stronger.
Thank You!
Was Ryan nominated for President? I find it very strange such attention is being given to the "Ryan Plan" when it's Romney that is the GOP nominee. Were we discussing the Biden Plan 4 years ago? While I understand Ryan did put forth a plan, this is a diversion from where our focus should be: what has Congress actually done and not done, and what can we do to improve this in the next term. The media has no focus and seems to chase topics like these that get our country nowhere.
The Ryan budget would be a disaster for the country. It would be a "path to prosperity" only for the already prosperous. He is being very facetious to say that it would "preserve Medicare for future generations." It would do no such thing, but would function as a defined contribution program, not a defined benefit program. People do not want their Medicare messed with, and if they are for Romney and Ryan they must not have realized the truth yet. When they do, I am sure they would not want to touch them with a barge pole.
If you are 55 and older and they told you that you would "keep your Medicare with no changes", don't believe it. It would be as if you had bought a Saturn automobile. They stopped making Saturns a few years ago. Try getting parts and service in 20 or so years from now for a Saturn. The same with whatever Medicare is there for you when you are in your 80s and feeble.
Never trust anything that comes out of the mouth of a double-first named woman with a Southern accent. Yes, Grace-Marie, I'm talking about you!
Fool Me Once:
The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year.
This says you haven't proven anything.
With this type of medicare plan will our representatives - congressman, senators, etc also have this system?
ValpoViking wrote: "Was Ryan nominated for President? I find it very strange such attention is being given to the "Ryan Plan" when it's Romney that is the GOP nominee"
Ryan needs to be defined as Satan incarnate by the left asap, this show is nothing more than a political arm of the democrat party, expect no even handed responsible exploration of the issues here.
The program does need some changes, but as Jared said it needs the RIGHT ones. Of course, as some of us have been saying for years, the way to fix Medicare is to extend it to everybody and to get rid of the private health insurance industry. That would save a lot of money and reduce the deficit by a large amount.
See www.pnhp.org and www.healthcare-now.org/divestment.
How is it that Congressman Ryan developed such a reputation as a fiscal conservative when he voted for increase in medicare, costly wars in blood and treasure, auto bailout, bank bailout, tax cuts for the rich, Bush's prescription plan. How is this fiscally conservative?
I think the most interesting tangle that the Ryan choice is going to continue to kick up is Paul Ryan as an Ayn Rand devotee and his alleged commitment to Catholic values. Especially in case of those less fortunate.
My feeling as a 50 something in Florida. Florida would like to see their portion of medicare just go away. We are a very Republican state and I have indications that in Florida if you get sick the GO want you to die and die quickly (thank you Alan Grayson)
Jim Gamble wrote: "This says you haven't proven anything"
Stamping your feet does not validate your point. The point by 'fool me once' was made very clear if you did not choose to ignore it. There is no automatic increase on seniors of $6500!
"If the value of the subsidy does not keep up with the growth of health care costs, seniors would make up the cost and pay higher medical bills. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Ryan’s plan would raise seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses by $6,500 per year"
Why is everyone calling this Ryan move "bold" As Stephen Colbert pointed out "white, Christian and male" Bold?
So the Ryan plan would cut taxes on capital gains ...so Romney would pay less than 1% in taxes? Or what? And those coal miners that Romney appeared in front of in Ohio would pay a higher percentage of taxes on their hard earned money than Romney? Is that right?
As a country we need to start choosing between Wars and military and health, welfare and infrastructure. The GOP had their chance from 2001-2008 and we know what they chose!!! The worst part they lied about the reason to go to war it was a war of choice. GOP never again