Ryan Plan not working out too well for Republicans

[Frank M 181]

Post 29. Numbers 3 and 4. If you weren't referring to the Ryan plan, WTF were you talking about?

 

This should be good.

 

 

I don't know what you're looking at, but the words "The Tea Partiers are protesting the Ryan Plan" aren't in there at all. You must have me confused with Phurfur.

 

~40~

[Vikings4ever 567]

 

I don't know what you're looking at, but the words "The Tea Partiers are protesting the Ryan Plan" aren't in there at all. You must have me confused with Phurfur.

 

~40~

3- New, spendthrift Republicans that the Tea Partiers sent to Congress to cut spending now want to cut/modify Medicare.

 

4-Tea Partiers say "WTF? Now YOU guys want to mess with my Medicare, too?"

[Frank M 181]

 

[Recliner Pilot 61]

 

I don't know what you're looking at, but the words "The Tea Partiers are protesting the Ryan Plan" aren't in there at all. You must have me confused with Phurfur.

 

~40~

 

 

Wow!

 

You aren't doing much to improve the image of the morons who voted for Obama.

[Frank M 181]

Wow!

 

You aren't doing much to improve the image of the morons who voted for Obama.

 

You should recognize the tactic. You use it all the time.

 

Link to where I said Tea Partiers are protesting the Ryan plan?

 

Good luck!

[Recliner Pilot 61]

You should recognize the tactic. You use it all the time.

 

Link to where I said Tea Partiers are protesting the Ryan plan?

 

Good luck!

So now your position is that the tea party approves of the Ryan plan. Gotcha.

[Dr.Grimm 0]

So now your position is that the tea party approves of the Ryan plan. Gotcha.

 

[IGotWorms 4,060]

The GOP put it's neck on the line by doing the right thing and now they're getting punished for it. The same thing will happen in reverse if tax increases are put on the table.

 

Actually, polls show that over 70% of Americans favor increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Over HALF of REPUBLICANS even support it. So I think that's where you start. Now I'm all in favor of spending cuts but Medicare needs to be left alone. It's extremely popular for a reason: it works.

[IMMensaMind 462]

The link in the OP. Plenty of blue hairs riled up over the thought of Medicare being cut.

 

I suppose they could all be Democratic plants, though.

 

 

You must have missed the news:

 

Ryan plan polling best with.....seniors

 

Okay, so what you do want to say about the issue now that your "Democratic plants" have proven to be.....Democratic plants?

 

[IMMensaMind 462]

Actually, polls show that over 70% of Americans favor increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Over HALF of REPUBLICANS even support it. So I think that's where you start. Now I'm all in favor of spending cuts but Medicare needs to be left alone. It's extremely popular for a reason: it works.

 

Link? Was not aware of such sentiment; would be curious to see where you got that information, and specifically what question(s) was asked to engender that response.

[penultimatestraw 473]

An article from the New England Journal of Medicine:

 

How Not to Reform Medicare

NEJM | April 6, 2011 | Topics: Medicare and Medicaid

Henry J. Aaron, Ph.D.

 

Medicare reform has become a hot political issue. The program is wildly popular but expensive. It is the principal source of projected increases in budget deficits. With deficits increasingly seen as a mortal economic threat, many believe that now is the time for Medicare reform.

 

The reform flavor of the day is “premium support.” What is it? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

 

The idea dates from the mid-1990s, when traditional Medicare provided nearly all beneficiaries “defined benefit” health insurance coverage — payment for most of the cost of whatever covered services enrollees and their health care providers deemed medically necessary. Although coverage was incomplete and out-of-pocket payments could be large, Medicare shielded beneficiaries from most of the cost of medical care as they aged and their health worsened and as ever-more-costly treatments came on stream.

 

At that time, some analysts proposed — and the majority of an official commission endorsed — an alternative “defined contribution” system. Instead of traditional coverage, people eligible for Medicare would receive a voucher that they could use to help pay for a standard health insurance plan. People who wanted a more costly plan would have to pay all the added cost. Those who found a cheaper alternative could pocket all or most of the savings. Consumers would be able to choose among insurance plans, which, it was hoped, would compete to lower costs and raise quality. Growth of government Medicare spending would be slowed because the value of the voucher would be linked to some economic index that grows less rapidly than the cost of health care.

 

Critics of this approach feared that private insurers would continue to compete primarily by trying to enroll the healthy and not the sick — a practice called risk selection. The result would be increased administrative costs, not improved quality. The elderly and disabled would face ever heavier financial burdens and larger risks as the value of their vouchers fell further and further behind rising health care costs.

 

Robert Reischauer and I coined the term “premium support” for a plan intended to address at least some of these objections.1 Premium support would be tied to average health care costs, not an economic index. The menu of private insurance plans would be limited to facilitate informed choice by enrollees. A nonprofit or government agency would provide explanatory literature and extensive counseling and handle sales to avoid misleading and costly sales methods. Group-based, retrospective risk adjustments — financial transfers among plans based on the risk profiles of actual enrollees — would make competition based on risk selection unprofitable.

 

Current versions of voucher plans lack all or most of these features. The most recent is the just-released plan of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI).2 It is modeled on the proposal Ryan previously put forward in conjunction with former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Office of Management and Budget director Alice Rivlin.3 Under the House Budget Committee plan:

 

• Traditional Medicare would end for everyone turning 65 in 2022 or later.

 

• Newly eligible Americans would receive a voucher worth $8,000 on average. As people aged, their vouchers would be increased to reflect increasing use of health care. The value of all vouchers would be indexed to consumer prices. Vouchers for the 8% of enrollees with the highest incomes would be reduced.

 

• Low-income Medicare beneficiaries (“dual eligibles”) would cease to be covered by Medicaid. Instead, they would get a medical savings account equal to $7,800 (also indexed to track consumer prices).

 

• The rest of Medicaid would become a block grant, also indexed to consumer prices.

 

The plan would repeal all major elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including subsidies, Medicaid extensions, insurance exchanges, and requirements that businesses provide insurance and that individuals buy it.

 

Although the Ryan–Rivlin and House Budget Committee plans are called “premium support,” they actually jettison all or most of the consumer protections that distinguish premium support from bare vouchers. Both would shift costs to Medicare enrollees. The CBO estimates that by 2030 the House Budget Committee plan would increase the out-of-pocket share of health care spending for a typical Medicare beneficiary from the current 25-to-30% range to 68%. By 2050, the House plan would cut federal health care spending by approximately two thirds.4 Both plans would place substantial administrative burdens on the most vulnerable and infirm of Medicare’s enrollees. And both would surrender the considerable leverage that Medicare can bring to bear on providers to reduce spending and improve quality, which to date has gone largely unused but which the ACA aims to mobilize with the backing of the Independent Payment Advisory Board.

 

Replacing Medicaid coverage for dual eligibles with a medical savings account would require a population that is largely infirm, physically or mentally, to manage sizable sums, carry over balances from year to year, and cope with insurance-company red tape. Block-granting Medicaid would mean that during recessions, when enrollments rise and revenues fall, states would lose federal cost sharing that now ranges from 50 to 75 cents on the dollar; the result, inevitably, would be cuts in coverage just when services are most needed.

 

Supporters of both plans claim they would give enrollees increased choice and promote competition. But Medicare enrollees have wide choice today, with far more protections than either plan would provide. The average Medicare enrollee today may choose among an average of 24 plans, in addition to traditional Medicare — 10 health maintenance organizations, 4 local and 5 regional preferred-provider organizations, 4 private fee-for-service plans, and 1 cost plan.5 Starting in 2022, both the Ryan–Rivlin plan and the House Budget Committee plan would eliminate one key option — traditional Medicare, which still attracts three quarters of enrollees despite the fact that alternative plans now receive payments larger than the average cost of traditional Medicare, enabling them to provide extra coverage or charge reduced premiums.

 

Supporters claim that vouchers would provide Medicare beneficiaries with the sort of subsidies that the ACA offers through health insurance exchanges. That claim is false. The ACA’s subsidies fully protect people receiving them through 2017 against growth of health insurance costs beyond specified fractions of income; thereafter, they provide partial protection against premium growth. The vouchers in both plans provide no such protection. The House Budget Committee plan, in fact, virtually guarantees that the elderly and disabled will have to pay for an ever-increasing share of health care spending.

 

In brief, current proposals are not premium support as Reischauer and I used the term. In addition, I now believe that even with the protections we set forth, vouchers have serious shortcomings. Only systemic health care reform holds out real promise of slowing the growth of Medicare spending. Predicted savings from vouchers or premium support are speculative. Cost shifting to the elderly, disabled, and poor and to states is not. Medicare’s size confers power, so far largely untapped, that no private plan can match to promote the systemic change that can improve quality and reduce cost. The advantages of choice in health care relate less to choice of insurance plan than to choice of provider, which traditional Medicare now provides and which many private plans restrict as a management tool. Finally, the success of premium support depends on sustained and rigorous regulation of plan offerings and marketing that the current Congress shows no disposition to establish and maintain.

[Frank M 181]

So now your position is that the tea party approves of the Ryan plan. Gotcha.

 

 

Where did I say that? Link, please.

[Frank M 181]

You must have missed the news:

 

Ryan plan polling best with.....seniors

 

Okay, so what you do want to say about the issue now that your "Democratic plants" have proven to be.....Democratic plants?

 

 

 

Doesn't say anything about Democratic plants in that link. What are you talking about?

[IMMensaMind 462]

 

Doesn't say anything about Democratic plants in that link. What are you talking about?

 

:holds out hand to lead Frank through the confusing world:

 

The plants comment was tongue-in-cheek. It references the Gallup Poll which shows that Ryan's plan polls highest with seniors; that they support his plan far more than they support Obama's - which is pretty much the opposite of what you were trying to portray.

 

Capisce?

 

:shakes loose Frank's hand and immediately heads for the bottle of Purell:

[Bert 1,128]

Actually, polls show that over 70% of Americans favor increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Over HALF of REPUBLICANS even support it. So I think that's where you start. Now I'm all in favor of spending cuts but Medicare needs to be left alone. It's extremely popular for a reason: it works.

 

How is the proposed creation of a higher tax bracket going to work?

 

Most people that make over 250,000 a year get the majority of their income from capitals gains, including that hypocritical dooshbag Warren Buffet. So in order to effectively tax the "rich" you need to increase the tax on capital gains. By increasing capital gains you have greatly increased the income tax burden of the middle and upper middle class. You also discourage savings and investing. And as a side benefit you royally fock every retiree in the country.

[Phurfur 70]

Actually, polls show that over 70% of Americans favor increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. Over HALF of REPUBLICANS even support it. So I think that's where you start. Now I'm all in favor of spending cuts but Medicare needs to be left alone. It's extremely popular for a reason: it works.

 

Do you have any idea how much of a deficit Medicare runs every year? How can you say it works when it is not even solvent?

 

Where do you get this crap from?

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Do you have any idea how much of a deficit Medicare runs every year? How can you say it works when it is not even solvent?

 

Where do you get this crap from?

He pulls it out of his arse. I'd love to see the polls he's talking about.

[MTSkiBum 1,625]

How is the proposed creation of a higher tax bracket going to work?

 

Most people that make over 250,000 a year get the majority of their income from capitals gains, including that hypocritical dooshbag Warren Buffet. So in order to effectively tax the "rich" you need to increase the tax on capital gains. By increasing capital gains you have greatly increased the income tax burden of the middle and upper middle class. You also discourage savings and investing. And as a side benefit you royally fock every retiree in the country.

 

Just get rid of the Bush tax cuts?

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Just get rid of the Bush tax cuts?

So you advocate a 50% increase in income taxes on the poorest income tax payers in the country.

[MTSkiBum 1,625]

So you advocate a 50% increase in income taxes on the poorest income tax payers in the country.

 

Tax levels were at an acceptable level in 2001, and i believe a return to the old tax rates would help the government bring in more money.

[Bert 1,128]

Just get rid of the Bush tax cuts?

So the taxes paid by people with income between 65,000 - 145,000 will go from 25% and 28% to 27% and 30% and their capital gains rates will go from 15% to 27% and 30%.

 

Sounds like the middle class and especially retirees get focked pretty hard.

[MTSkiBum 1,625]

So the taxes paid by people with income between 65,000 - 145,000 will go from 25% and 28% to 27% and 30% and their capital gains rates will go from 15% to 27% and 30%.

 

Sounds like the middle class and especially retirees get focked pretty hard.

 

Money has to come from somewhere. People were doing just fine at the older tax rates.

 

 

People are going to have to make sacrifices. Tax's are going to have to be increased AND government programs are going to have to be cut.

[Bert 1,128]

Money has to come from somewhere. People were doing just fine at the older tax rates.

 

 

People are going to have to make sacrifices. Tax's are going to have to be increased AND government programs are going to have to be cut.

 

I don't disagree but what is being proposed is adding an additonal tax bracket for people with income over 250,000. I want worms to explain how that is going to work.

 

I really wish we would move to a consumption tax and limit the insanity.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

Tax levels were at an acceptable level in 2001, and i believe a return to the old tax rates would help the government bring in more money.

 

Surely you aren't suggesting your Hero break a one of his main campaign promises

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again.

[IMMensaMind 462]

Tax levels were at an acceptable level in 2001, and i believe a return to the old tax rates would help the government bring in more money.

 

The Government does. not. need. one. more. focking. red. cent.

 

Perhaps you aren't understanding that at this point, it isn't about paying down the National Debt. We will never pay down that debt; it is a strawman to even worry about it at this point. We could take 100% of all income from everyone in this country, and you will not put it down.

 

Do you get that?

 

Even Obama's budget deficit couldn't be paid down in this manner. Do you know how large a percentage of our historically accumulated National Debt Obama's 2011 budget deficit represents?

 

 

It's about making our economy whole, and allowing the people to be prosperous. Our Government's debt is fock salad. Our Government's deficit can only be controlled via stopping the god-damned spending.

 

And I'm not giving them one additional plugged nickel to enable further spending.

[GettnHuge 2]

The only way the gov't can pay off our debt is to take in more money to get the job done. Taxes just aren't high enough at this time.

[Recliner Pilot 61]

The govt brings in roughly $2 trillion each year. If they can't fund the very limited things the Constitution allows on that amount, fukk em. They don't need more money.

 

It's the spending, Stupid!

[MedStudent 56]

An article from the New England Journal of Medicine:

I had lunch with a couple of doctors the other day who were talking about this. They said tying the voucher cost to the CPI instead of some some health cost index was very dangerous.

[penultimatestraw 473]

I had lunch with a couple of doctors the other day who were talking about this. They said tying the voucher cost to the CPI instead of some some health cost index was very dangerous.

Yep - cutting Medicare spending without addressing the cost of healthcare won't fix the problem. This mentality isn't based on an understanding of the "product", or the consequences of people being unable to "consume" it.

[MedStudent 56]

 

 

And I'm not giving them one additional plugged nickel to enable further spending.

Speaking of plugs, you might want to buy one for your butt before you get carted off to jail for tax evasion.

[penultimatestraw 473]

Speaking of plugs, you might want to buy one for your butt before you get carted off to jail for tax evasion.