Now that Republicans have failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the short term many are still working to make the implementation even more problematic. One of the latest efforts comes from Paul Ryan (R-WI) “warning governors” that they shouldn’t count on generous matching funds for Medicaid expansion. From Chicago Tribune: The chairman of [...]

It has been a long road, but the Republican Party’s embrace of the idea of privatizing Medicare via a voucher system is now complete. The GOP will add Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program to their official party platform, based on a draft version likely to be ratified. From Bloomberg: “While [...]

Yet another poll shows that the general idea of voucherizing Medicare is very unpopular with voters. According to the most recent Pew Research poll only 34 percent of adults favor the idea of turning Medicare into a system were people get credits to buy private insurance, while 49 percent oppose the idea. From Pew: The [...]

About the the only satisfaction I get out of Rep. Paul Ryan’s horrible plan to voucherize Medicare is the truly ironic effect it has on the top supporters of the Affordable Care Act. For much of 2009-2010 they kept saying how vouchers to buy private health insurance on an exchange was a great idea for [...]

Turning Medicare into a voucher program or a “premium support” program, as Rep. Paul Ryan would describe his plan for Medicare, is highly unpopular with basically all segments of the American people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation poll. The poll found 58 percent want to keep Medicare as is, including 55 percent of Republicans. [...]

With the Presidential campaign in full swing and the Democrats already running on how the Romney-Ryan ticket wants to destroy Medicare, Vice President Joe Biden is trying to frame Democrats as the savior of entitlements. At an event in Virginia Biden promised absolutely no changes to Social Security will be made if President Obama is [...]

While doing my taxes I came to a realization. How would the IRS react if I did my returns the same way Paul Ryan did his “budget,” allowing me to be completely vague and lacking in almost any actual numbers or details where it mattered? So I quickly mocked up what my 1040 would look [...]

I love a good provocative title as much as the next writer but it has to at least make some sense, which really doesn’t seem to be the case with Ezra Klein’s new article ‘Ryan May Lead to Single-Payer Health Care.’ As best as I can make sense of the rather strange logic leaps, Klein [...]

According to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Paul Ryan (R-WI) House Republican budget outline, at least what can be analyzed given that Ryan leaves huge unanswered questions about how his tax provision would even work, the plan calls for massive cuts in public health care spending. The result of the cuts would be [...]

To coincide with Paul Ryan’s release of the House Republican budget, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) put an op-ed up in the Huffington Post to defend creating the Wyden-Ryan Medicare proposal.  That proposal has allowed Ryan to claim there is “bipartisan support” for his budget proposals. Those who say they support Wyden-Ryan simply for political cover [...]