Flaws in Ryan’s Medicaid/Medicare Proposals Reveal Systemic Flaws with all Private Coverage

McClatchy on the carnivorous eviscerations of Medicaid and Medicare endorsed by House Budget Committee chairman Rep Paul Ryan:

Medicare enrollees would get a set amount from the government to purchase private plans. Those plans would cost considerably more than traditional Medicare, the CBO said, partly because private plans pay hospitals, doctors and other providers more and have higher administrative costs. At the same time, enrollees would pay a higher percentage of the overall cost of their coverage.

“What CBO is saying is beneficiaries would pay much less under traditional Medicare for two reasons: The overall cost of the plan would be much cheaper, and they would pay a lesser share of that less-costly plan,” said Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research center.

 

This is certainly true, and as convincing as anything that Paul Ryan will gladly eat your grandparents if it means a free meal. But that curious imbalance of higher premiums funneled into a diminished output is a symptom of all private healthcare coverage. You pay more for the profligate administrative waste of a private insurer and get less coverage because of their profit motive. The Congressional Budget Office’s comments underscore, perhaps unintentionally, how much more efficient a single payer, medicare-style healthcare plan is over our current outmoded, private model.

That being said Paul Ryan is SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE. SHEESH! Really, there’s no argument for privatizing social safety net programs like medicare and medicaid, other than “WANT EAT OLD PEOPLES MONEY”