atrios writes what had been bounced around in my head in the past 24 hours. paul ryan's "courageous" proposal to abolish medicare has a lot of superficial resemblance to the affordable care act (aka obamacare).
rather than being a "government takeover of health care", obama's health care reform essentially requires everyone under the age of 65 to participate in the private insurance market with subsidies to those who might have difficulty affording insurance on their own. similarly, ryan's plan for medicare would phase out the existing single payer system for people over 65 and force them to purchase their own private insurance policy. only instead of giving assistance just to those who might have trouble affording health insurance, ryan's plan would give government subsidies (in the form of vouchers) to everyone over 65.
i realize it is useless to hope for logical consistency from the right these days. but their embrace of the ryan plan for medicare while simultaneously claiming that "obamacare" is a disaster for this country makes no sense at all.
rather than being a "government takeover of health care", obama's health care reform essentially requires everyone under the age of 65 to participate in the private insurance market with subsidies to those who might have difficulty affording insurance on their own. similarly, ryan's plan for medicare would phase out the existing single payer system for people over 65 and force them to purchase their own private insurance policy. only instead of giving assistance just to those who might have trouble affording health insurance, ryan's plan would give government subsidies (in the form of vouchers) to everyone over 65.
i realize it is useless to hope for logical consistency from the right these days. but their embrace of the ryan plan for medicare while simultaneously claiming that "obamacare" is a disaster for this country makes no sense at all.
