Threatening the sacred cow carries dire consequences for politicians.
The budget Rep. Paul Ryan proposed for the GOP focuses on cutting back both Medicare and Medicaid. Everyone understood it wasn’t going to be popular, and chances are that it won’t pass. However, it gives us an opportunity to remember how much money these programs siphon away from all the other items the government addresses.
While we applaud Ryan for boldly trying to attack the deficit problem at its roots, we also have to call him out. Ryan painted switching to a voucher system for Medicare as saving money over the long run, and although we are excited at the prospect of freeing up federal money without losing the level of care our seniors receive, we realized it was too good to be true. If switching to private companies kept all factors the same other than the lowered price, wouldn’t everyone have been on board with the idea by now?
The fact is the combination of corruption and higher rates — as demonstrated through the Medicare Advantage plan — will cost us even more in the long run. Rep. Ryan, we’ll give you points for trying to go against the grain to cut spending, but you need to recheck your numbers, especially when you’re proposing deeper tax cuts. Unfortunately, there’s no simple solution that doesn’t involve directly harming the American people.
But, hey, what do we care? By the time we retire, that whole Medicare thing is likely to be a relic of the past.
