Ryan's Plan

Representative Paul Ryan is now Mitt Romney's running mate, which many seniors may have a problem with. Although he has since softened his stance, Ryan's original 2011 Medicare reform plan has remained a powerful Democratic attack target and a policy deeply unpopular among the nation's seniors.Both Romney and Ryan now support a kinder, gentler version of Ryan’s original, polarizing plan, which would have eliminated the government run insurance program in favor of a fixed-value voucher plan for seniors. Is this the right choice for our families?

The proposal would preserve traditional Medicare as a choice, but encourage seniors to shift to private plans that offer lower premiums by forcing traditional Medicare to compete on price. The most detailed proposal came last month from Ryan himself, who agreed to soften his original plan, and Senator Ron Wyden, who said that a voucher system with Medicare as a choice could be an important first step toward managing Medicare’s projected cost growth without taking benefits for seniors. Will this plan work now becomes the question? Will competition for health care do anything or will it leave us worse than where we are?

In a post from the National Journal, Judy Foster had this to say, “The case that competition works is just not there,” she also said that it would be impossible to reap major savings from a premium-support plan without shifting costs to seniors or significantly reducing benefits. “The case for market share does work.” If this plan takes effect it will mean more costs for us.

This plan will have different plans in which seniors will have an option to choose from.According to Kate Pickert from Time.com if the Ryan plan takes effect 59% percent of seniors will have to pay higher premiums in order to have the same medicare plans they currently have now. So what is going on? Well they are making different packages that seniors wont have to pay more for, but those packages are worse than what they already have. There’s no way for the government to spend less on the existing Medicare program without asking seniors to pay more than they already are. President Obama knows this and that why the Affordable Care Act includes a trigger for a board to suggest cuts to providers if Medicare spending exceeds certain targets.

What does this mean for seniors if the Ryan plan takes effect? Well you will either have to pay more for the same plans you already have or you will have to drop to a cheaper and worse plan to stay at what you already pay. I believe the Ryan plan is not going to do much helping at all.

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