Medicare, unlike Social Security, cannot be easily fixed. It's on a path toward disaster along with Medicaid and pretending that all is well isn't going to change that.
Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gestures during a rally at Piedmont Precision Machine Company in Danville, Va., Wednesday.Paul Ryan used to want to destroy Medicare. Now he wants to destroy it while claiming that he intends to save it.
The Republican vice presidential nominee was the author of a plan to turn Medicare, the popular health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, into a voucher system. This was in his so-called roadmap, issued two years ago.
The plan, it was clear, would leave many who rely on Medicare paying more and more of their own money – money they likely didn’t have – for their health care.
So Ryan changed his tune. Sort of. Rather than replacing Medicare with a voucher program, he’d leave Medicare in place and at the same time establish a private system to operate alongside the traditional plan.
Those who want to remain in the old Medicare could stay. Those who opted for the private plans could go.
What would happen? Healthier folks would be the ones to opt out, leaving Medicare the province of the sick and infirm, forcing it closer to insolvency. It’s just Ryan’s original plan in fancier clothes.
But there’s another real problem here.
The incumbent, President Barack Obama, is happy to scare voters away from the vision of his opponents, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and running mate Ryan, but he hasn’t offered a way out himself.
Medicare, unlike Social Security, cannot be easily fixed. It’s on a path toward disaster – along with Medicaid – and pretending that all is well isn’t going to change that.
Obama is absolutely right to put the fear of God into people about the Republican plan. But he’s got to offer a little something of his own on the matter.
If what you’ve got going is unsustainable, criticizing a proposed remedy as dangerous is only half a step.
The Ryan stand is an awful one, but the president’s is untenable. A real plan, anyone?