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Let's start with the hyperbole.
"Rep. Paul Ryan is generating excitement among conservative circles for a bill he introduced that would reform Social Security, Medicare, the health care system and the tax code. "
"I call it a roadmap for America's future," said Rep. Ryan. Insiders… say Ryan's measure represents the kind of fresh thinking the party needs to turn itself around."
Fresh? Privatizing Medicare and Social Security, and make the public pay out of their meager incomes health care premiums with a small tax deduction, when employers once payed and got 100 percent deductability?
"Republican strategists say …might help the party recast itself as the party of limited government and fiscal restraint."
Yes, and stick all the risk in the publics lap with no safety nets.
"Ryan's bill would offer more transparency in health care costs; provide more flexibility for state-sponsored high-risk pools for insurance."
More "state-sponsored" flexibility means states pay more, squeezing Wisconsin taxpayers. Insurance is supposed to spread the risk, thus lowering the cost of coverage, this plan does the opposite. This also puts everyone out there alone, removing any possible group discount. The bill would also set up medical savings accounts to pay for out-of-pocket costs. Sorry Rep. Ryan, these savings accounts have been analyzed and discredited by economic experts. I should know, I've had one for six years and it's wiped out my kids college savings accounts.
We already know that insurance companies suck up 20 to 30 percent of every health care dollar, so why not let them do the same for Medicare? A gift to the "for profit from illness" industry of gluttonous racketeers. Bravo!
Ryan would reform the Social Security program, giving workers the option of investing a third of their current Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts. A gift to investment companies and banks holding the retirement accounts, while draining the standard plan. Just like health savings accounts, which have already been roundly criticized by everyone except conservative ideologues, personal retirement accounts would only benefit the wealthy. Contradiction ALERT: Ryan says "the government" will guarantee a minimum in those personal accounts. What, rely on big bad government promises? Sounds a lot like another taxpayer bailout for the go-it-alone personal account risk takers if things don't pan out.
Much of Rep. Ryan's plan would be unnecessary with the implementation of a single payer health care system in this country. European countries spend less than we do. It is stunning to think we haven't culled the best from of their plans for ourselves. In fact, Rep. Ryan even acknowledges how much more we spend in the U.S. than in Europe, while completely ignoring the obvious: Europeans style health care is the solution.
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First, due in part to very low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, Americans simply have not done much saving in the last two decades. So they have nothing on which to fall back, except perhaps their children's generosity. I recently calculated my savings, less than $50,000 all told. How could I save when we put our kids through childcare, and the bulk of my income was used to support a family, while my wife did some saving for her and for the children out of her quite meager salary. She gets about $22 per hour. The firm is on her case consistently about billable hours. If we had the same minimum wage that I had in 1965, it would be at least $12 per hour now. So what is the big deal about my wife earning $22 per hour while age 54? Hey you tycoons, there is nothing on which the middle and lower classes can privately retire.
My sis is 67. She receives $720 per month in social security, certainly a drag on the earning of some would be tycoon on NYMEX, driving up oil futures so that my sister will have to stay at home for a long time, it would appear. Her filthy rich employer, Kohler, had her working at 1965 minimum wages in housekeeping. She would get about $11 daily to fix up rooms that were "rented" by the American Club for up to $900 per night. The company was looking for cheaper labor, and got some Hmong and Mexicans to work at $7 per hour. Hey tycoons, and ideologists of wealth, are the Mexicans supposed to save at $7 per hour? Yep, let's have private savings accounts to help us with our savings program for old age.
Hey, Cong Ryan is for flat taxes. Well, social security has not been a flat tax. One is taxed up to $103,000 or so. This means that half the nation's household income is not taxed, roughly. The top twenty percent of taxpaying households earn half the nation's income. Tax those who often inflict social insecurity on the rest of the nation with high cost professional services, and wild trading in corporate ownership, and free trade policies for everyone but the elite.
If we had $9 trillion in national income total, and taxed it all at 8 percent for social security (broadly defined to include OASDI, food stamps, and unemployment insurance with general revenue funding, and we would have $720 billion to budget for social (in) security. Allow people to taper off work,and come back sporadically after retirement, or take temporary retirements in middle age to recover and regroup, and then we might have a tolerable system or private and public mixes of those awful "entitlement" earnings. Awful to the people who pay for them? Not awful for those in need, often dire need after working their hearts out in America?