Dean Baker - It's the Health Care Stupid

[Epsilon Delta]

Interesting article about the deficit, the GOP health care plan, and the media:


What we're not being told about Paul Ryan's Medicare plan | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Unfortunately the Washington policy gang is busy following Claude Rains’ instructions. The nation is drowning in endless accounts of how the huge deficit will sink the economy and the country. These accounts invariably feature stories of a Congress addicted to spending and a nation that wants government benefits that it doesn’t want to pay for.

This story has nothing to do with reality as all budget analysts know. The explosion of the budget deficit in the last three years is a response to the plunge in private sector demand following the collapse of the housing bubble. If the budget deficit were smaller, we would simply have less demand and fewer jobs.

Paul Ryan did his best to lay out the long-term story as clearly as possible with his plan to privatize Medicare. The analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that Ryan’s plan would hugely increase the cost of health care to seniors. Under the Ryan plan a Medicare equivalent policy is projected to cost almost half of a median 65-year old retiree’s income by 2030. It would soon exceed the income of most retirees as health care costs outpace income growth.

However most of the additional burden projected for retirees is not the result of cost shifting from the government. The vast majority of the additional burden that the CBO projected for retirees comes from the higher cost of private insurance compared with the government-run Medicare system. The additional cost as a result of adopting Ryan’s privatized system is more than $30 trillion over Medicare’s 75-year planning horizon.

[...]

However it seems that no budget reporters – not a single reporter at the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or any other major news outlet – picked up on this central point in the analysis from the CBO. Instead they talked about the plan as a question of whether people preferred a government guarantee or would rather have individuals rely on themselves and the market to obtain health care in their old age. The $30 trillion price tag in the form of added waste was altogether missing in the reporting.

[...]

Similarly, there was almost no reporting on the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which has given us the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Instead we were given the assurance from Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and the rest that everything was OK. Instead the news outlets told us to worry about the budget deficit – back when it was just 1.0 percent of GDP.

Incredible as it may seem, the national press corps is almost completely ignoring a report from the government’s main source of budget projections. Rather than telling people that the Ryan plan to privatize Medicare means transferring tens of trillions of dollars from taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries to private insurers and the health care industry, they spread drivel about the issue being a matter of whether people like the government or the market.

 

[kiwiman127]

And that's why I call Ryan's plan "Plutocracy in Action".
Ever notice the Ryan supporters never address the specifics of Ryan's plan for Medicare. As a matter of fact, GOP representatives are getting beat up at Town Hall Meetings and many have canceled the Town Hall Meetings they had set up because of the hostile audiences who are mad as hell about Ryan's Medicare plan. Even those who voted for it don't want to defend it.

 

[chikenwing]

If his plan is so bad,and what we have now is not sustainable in its percent form which it is,what would you do?

we have ignored hard answer issues long enough.

 

[chikenwing]

they spread drivel about the issue being a matter of whether people like the government or the market.

Its not drivel for many people. Its a core concern,larger and large gov is a very big concern for many,and trivializing ther concerns is well, very wrong. If the last election didnt make that clear nothing ever will.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

they spread drivel about the issue being a matter of whether people like the government or the market.

Its not drivel for many people. Its a core concern,larger and large gov is a very big concern for many,and trivializing ther concerns is well, very wrong. If the last election didnt make that clear nothing ever will.

The point is that if the real goal is to control costs for health care, then the Ryan plan is totally worthless. The point is NOT whether people like government vs. markets (an entirely artificial debate that does nothing but make plans like Ryan's look serious when they are anything but).

If you just so happen to believe that it is an a priori truth that government shouldn't be involved in health care at all that's your prerogative, but the main issue here is that Ryan's plan will increase people's health care expenses exponentially over the next decades, and most people will either have no healthcare or go into mountains of further debt to maintain it.

 

[auditor0007]

If his plan is so bad,and what we have now is not sustainable in its percent form which it is,what would you do?

we have ignored hard answer issues long enough.

First of all, I didn't need to read this article to realize that Paul Ryan's plan would bankrupt the vast majority of seniors in a very short time. The program is a nightmare to everyone and would only further increase the costs of healthcare.

So what is the best way to reduce or better control the cost of Medicare? It's simple; increase the retirement age. Granted there are some people who will be forced on to disability as a good number of manual labor jobs wear people down much earlier in life. However, for the vast majority, working a few more years won't kill them, and since we are living much longer, that is the price of keeping guaranteed healthcare to the end.

To date, I have not heard of any better plans. If anyone has any, I'd be glad to hear them.

 

[auditor0007]

they spread drivel about the issue being a matter of whether people like the government or the market.

Its not drivel for many people. Its a core concern,larger and large gov is a very big concern for many,and trivializing ther concerns is well, very wrong. If the last election didnt make that clear nothing ever will.

It's all about perception and actual cost. When people are told over and over again that the private sector can do it better and cheaper, of course they are going to opt for privatization. However, if the actual truth is that privatization is going to cost them substantially more with no guarantee of a better end product or service, then they are going to opt to keep things the way they are, where they know that they will not be left in the cold.

People, and a lot of them very smart people, have started to take a close look at Ryan's plan, and they all come to the same conclusion. The plan is not only terrible, but it will destroy seniors and leave them without adequate coverage. This plan is going nowhere fast.

 

[kiwiman127]

I have yet to see any real economist embrace Ryan's plan.

 

[auditor0007]

If we cut $5000 in government costs per person, but it costs each person $10,000 in the private sector, then it is a net loss. People understand this and will not support this.