It is a testament to how far down the road to social democracy America has travelled that Paul Ryan would be considered radical.
The portrayal of the Republican Vice Presidential candidate by leftists and the mainstream media (sorry for the redundancy) as a baby-faced assassin could only hope to gain traction in a nation that has evolved to such an advanced welfare state that common sense and the same free market principles that made America great now seem radical.
Given annual budget deficits projected in the range of one trillion dollars, radical economic plans call for spending cuts big enough to balance the federal budget in, three, five or even ten years (think Ron or Rand Paul). Depending on the crucial variable of economic growth, the Ryan budget plan, now integrated into Romney’s own plan, would not be scheduled to balance the budget until 2040. That’s 28 years from now. Boy, balancing the budget that quickly is really radical.
Perhaps people think it is radical since Obama’s budgets never reach balance, which of course is a moot point since the last two have not received a single vote, even from Senate Democrats who have not seen fit to perform their constitutional duty of passing a budget for over 1200 days.
But Exhibit A, the smoking gun, in the case for Ryan the radical is Medicare, now famously on the table with Ryan’s selection, and an issue the Romney campaign is trying to reverse with a new ad campaign revealing that massive cuts in the program are the brainchild not of Ryan, but the president, who will rob over $700 billion from the popular Peter (Medicare) to pay the unpopular Paul (Obamacare).
There is a monstrous disconnect between the personal and global realities of Medicare. People love the program, blissfully unaware of its staggering unfunded liabilities – over $80 trillion absent reform.
Yes, I said $80.000,000,000,000. This is a metaphysical threat to our future, and what’s needed is public education, a reality check. And as evidenced by the ascension of grown-up Governors like Chris Christie, Scott Walker and John Kasich and heartening results on a number of recent ballot questions, there is evidence that we may at last and at least be starting to not only understand, but accept the truth that we’re dangerously close to the economic cliff and still driving over the speed limit. Think Greece.
The left and mainstream media have predictably focused on the original Ryan Medicare plan, because it more radical than the plan that is actually on the table here and now, and thus easier to demonize as inhumane at best. Of course, everyone knows budget proposals represent nothing more than the starting point of negotiations. And the end product of negotiations on this issue is the actual current Ryan Medicare plan, co-sponsored by liberal Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In fact, the plan was designed for the express purpose of bipartisanship. Wyden, though now of course attempting to distance himself from, uh, himself, originally said of his and Ryan’s handiwork, “There’s a window of opportunity here, a chance to change the conversation, lower the decibel level … and see if we can bring together progressives and conservatives.”
The Wyden-Ryan bill is so radical it actually adds rather than subtracts available options for Medicare recipients. No current beneficiary, and no one within ten years of receiving benefits, is affected at all. Status quo. But here’s the kicker: those more than ten years away can not only choose to continue exactly the same arrangement, but can actually get the government to pay for any of a miriad of private insurance plans.
People need only get competitive bids from multiple insurance companies. The government will pay the entire premium if you choose the second highest bid, will actually refund the difference if you choose the lowest bid, and you will pay the difference if you choose the highest bid. How radical.
Remember that elderly consumers generate by far the most health care business, not to mention that the elderly population will soon begin to swell at a rapid rate as baby boomers come of age. So, the resulting flood of new health care consumers is certain to expand the marketplace and thus significantly increase consumer choice, lower costs, and improve the quality of care, all by employing the same tried and true free market principles that apply to every other sector of the private economy.
More radical stuff.
With official bankrupcy of this massive program just half a generation away (and unofficial bankrupcy already upon us), nothing looms over our economic future as much as Medicare. Social Security doesn’t even come close. Even candidate Obama said exactly that during the 2008 presidential campaign.
But the ticking time bomb known as the national debt could actually be defused under Wyden-Ryan, with free market principles providing relief from the budgetary millstone that is Medicare while actually saving the doomed program – now, that is radical.
OK, enough with the sarcasm. You want something truly radical? How about a plan that would actually allow you, if you are under 45, to re-direct your Medicare taxes, and those of your employer, to your own personal retirement health savings account. This would allow you to keep more of your own money and make more of your decisions. You would control your own health care, building a nest egg for the years when the great bulk of health care costs are generally incurred. The indigent, chronically unemployed and disabled can be accommodated through assigned risk pools or re-assignment to Medicaid, which by the way, should be block-granted to the states, but that’s the subject for another day.
This retirement health savings (RHSA) plan, proposed in my own US Senate campaign, would go well beyond the Ryan plan by radically reducing your dependency on the third parties who are ultimately driving the ever-increasing costs of health care: insurance companies, which rig the system to promote overuse and abuse.
This is basically how it goes: a doctor, with incentives to over-prescribe, recommends a treatment to a patient, who has no incentives to determine if he really needs the treatment. If we had an actual free market in health care, patients would consider necessity and cost, as they do in virtually all other transactions, but instead they consider only whether the treatment is covered by their insurance plan. I’m paying an awfully high premium (or my employer covers these costs), so I sure as hell am going to get any treatment the doctor prescribes that my insurance covers.
This creates an artificially high levels of demand and cost, resulting in the inflation now rampant in our health care system.
And Obamacare makes things worse, with doctors, most of whom have stopped even accepting new Medicare patients because of the government’s non-competitive reimbursement rates, set to be squeezed even further.
The RHSA program would essentially gut this nonsensical system as it phases in over 20 years, allowing sufficient time for those now under 45 to save for and pay for the great bulk of their own care, while retaining catastrophic insurance policies for major medical issues and emergencies. Heck, doctors might even start making house calls again. OK, maybe not.
Nevertheless, the Wyden-Ryan plan takes one vital and logical step towards reforming the system – replacing outright dependency on the government with the option of dependence on insurance companies. A second step – providing tangible incentives for people to be largely independent of both the government and insurance companies – would complete the overhaul of a financial system that has become increasingly unworthy of the world’s greatest health care providers it purports to represent.
That his budget and Medicare plans are a heck of a lot better than what we have now should be obvious. The fact that it is not yet obvious does not change the demonstrable power of common sense and the free market, and the resulting conclusion that the only thing actually radical about Paul Ryan is the very notion that he is radical.
What is radical is that there is finally someone in Congress, and now standing for Vice President, courageous enough to stand up and touch the third rail of American politics, to actually tackle the biggest single threat to our economic future, even amidst the certainty he will be savaged for doing what is right.
