Grandma is a Welfare Queens
by digby
So Ryan gave a speech today:
Though billed as an effort to revamp his widely criticized budget, Ryan avoided describing his health care plans in specific detail, eschewing even the friendly terms he and other Republicans have used to explain it since he first unveiled it earlier this year. Instead, Ryan reframed the entitlement cuts in his budget as "strengthen[ing] welfare for those who need it," and accused Democrats who have attacked his budget as engaging in class warfare.
The House budget would phase out the existing Medicare program and replace it with a new program to provide future retirees with private insurance subsidies, which would shrink in value over time relative to steeply rising health care costs. This stands in contrast to the fairly broad consensus among Democrats that health care costs are best reined in by altering provider incentives and placing some restrictions on government-financed health care services, while allowing Medicare to remain a single-payer program for all beneficiaries.
Ryan characterized this distinction differently.
"If I could sum up that disagreement in a couple of sentences, I would say this: Our plan is to give seniors the power to deny business to inefficient providers. Their plan is to give government the power to deny care to seniors," he said, according to prepared remarks.
What an excellent idea. Let's have elderly people with multiple illnesses and infirmities take on the responsibility to "deny business to inefficient providers." It's the least they can do for us before they die. And God knows, they will be better at it than some government bureaucrat. After all, they're retired! They don't have anything to do all day but research medical inefficiencies.
Ryan just keeps digging. If he think that calling Medicare "welfare" is going to endear him to senior citizens, I think he's more than a little bit out of touch.
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