I was reading a Matt Yglesias post on health care in which he mentioned Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare. Matt says that he doesn't think that in 20 years most people are going to look back and say, that Ryan plan would have been a good idea. That's because a lot of people support providing health care to old people.
Mentioning the Ryan plan got me thinking about what it entails, which is basically just giving old people some money that they have to spend on health care. And the total amount of money can't rise above a certain % that is tied to inflation. Think about that in basic terms. Ryan and the Republicans that support that plan want to take taxpayer money and just give it to old people, but they can only spend it on health insurance.
Now, obviously they wouldn't be in favor of giving these people money if they didn't think they needed it, meaning these people don't have a lot of money. And since so much of the wealth in concentrated in such a small proportion of people, a big chunk of total revenue comes from the wealthy. What Republicans are basically doing is taking parts of that money the wealthy are paying and giving it to old people so that they can purchase a valuable commodity, health insurance. That sounds like what Republicans like to accuse Democrats of doing when they use taxpayer money to provide valuable commodities to people. The only difference I see is that when Democrats give people money they don't place such stringent limits as to how they can use the money. I guess one party's redistribution of wealth is another party's fiscally responsible way to save Medicare.
Mentioning the Ryan plan got me thinking about what it entails, which is basically just giving old people some money that they have to spend on health care. And the total amount of money can't rise above a certain % that is tied to inflation. Think about that in basic terms. Ryan and the Republicans that support that plan want to take taxpayer money and just give it to old people, but they can only spend it on health insurance.
Now, obviously they wouldn't be in favor of giving these people money if they didn't think they needed it, meaning these people don't have a lot of money. And since so much of the wealth in concentrated in such a small proportion of people, a big chunk of total revenue comes from the wealthy. What Republicans are basically doing is taking parts of that money the wealthy are paying and giving it to old people so that they can purchase a valuable commodity, health insurance. That sounds like what Republicans like to accuse Democrats of doing when they use taxpayer money to provide valuable commodities to people. The only difference I see is that when Democrats give people money they don't place such stringent limits as to how they can use the money. I guess one party's redistribution of wealth is another party's fiscally responsible way to save Medicare.
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