Rohirrim
05-03-2012, 06:48 AM
"The passage of the Affordable Care Act means we have put in place a key element of the premium support idea for the rest of the population, namely health insurance exchanges," Aaron said. "The Medicare population is vastly more difficult to deal with than the population under the Affordable Care Act. We should prove that the health insurance exchanges work, get them up and running before we take seriously, in my view, calls to put the Medicare population through a similar system."
Aaron also has a major problem with the way Ryan's plan contains costs -- by mandating that Medicare inflation be capped at no more than the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, plus 0.5 percent or 1 percent. Health care costs have escalated much faster then that, so premium support plans capped at a little more than GDP growth would buy smaller and smaller benefits.
Aaron also argued that there's another problem with trying to ensure a premium support model works -- it requires stringent regulation to make sure companies don't game the system. Aaron said he can't see that happening with a Congress fired by anti-regulatory zeal.
"The regulatory climate has changed," Aaron said. "It is far more hostile to the kinds of regulatory intervention that Bob Reischauer and I thought were essential."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/henry-aaron-paul-ryan-medicare_n_1466826.html
Nice to see a Republican actually turn to evidence, rather than ideology, to make a decision about something. If only the rest of his pals on the Right in Congress would do the same thing, we could actually start to have a discussion in this country about the policy changes we need to make and begin to turn it around. When all one side can say is, "My way or the highway," nothing will ever change.
In this issue, I think Aaron is bringing to sharp focus the major failure of the Right. Their ideological goal is to "shrink government until you can drown it in a bathtub." They still believe that "government is the problem" and the "magic hand" of the marketplace will fix everything. Is somebody who believes in that fantasy going to support using the proper, regulatory functions of government to make things work? Are they even going to allow the discussion to take place? Notice at this hearing that Ryan didn't ask this guy, with whom he wrote the "Ryan Plan" a single question. Why? Because he doesn't care about the evidence of it's failure.
It is not a matter of policy. It is a matter of ideology. And that's why the intransigence of the Right is dragging America into a pit.
Aaron also has a major problem with the way Ryan's plan contains costs -- by mandating that Medicare inflation be capped at no more than the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, plus 0.5 percent or 1 percent. Health care costs have escalated much faster then that, so premium support plans capped at a little more than GDP growth would buy smaller and smaller benefits.
Aaron also argued that there's another problem with trying to ensure a premium support model works -- it requires stringent regulation to make sure companies don't game the system. Aaron said he can't see that happening with a Congress fired by anti-regulatory zeal.
"The regulatory climate has changed," Aaron said. "It is far more hostile to the kinds of regulatory intervention that Bob Reischauer and I thought were essential."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/henry-aaron-paul-ryan-medicare_n_1466826.html
Nice to see a Republican actually turn to evidence, rather than ideology, to make a decision about something. If only the rest of his pals on the Right in Congress would do the same thing, we could actually start to have a discussion in this country about the policy changes we need to make and begin to turn it around. When all one side can say is, "My way or the highway," nothing will ever change.
In this issue, I think Aaron is bringing to sharp focus the major failure of the Right. Their ideological goal is to "shrink government until you can drown it in a bathtub." They still believe that "government is the problem" and the "magic hand" of the marketplace will fix everything. Is somebody who believes in that fantasy going to support using the proper, regulatory functions of government to make things work? Are they even going to allow the discussion to take place? Notice at this hearing that Ryan didn't ask this guy, with whom he wrote the "Ryan Plan" a single question. Why? Because he doesn't care about the evidence of it's failure.
It is not a matter of policy. It is a matter of ideology. And that's why the intransigence of the Right is dragging America into a pit.