No Need to "Demagogue" the Ryan Plan

WASHINGTON -- It always gets back to health care.

That's why 2009 and 2010 were so consumed by President Obama's push for health care reform, and why Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare proposals are at the center of politics in 2011. Our long-term budget problem is primarily about two things: a shortage of revenue and rising health care costs.

The revenue and health cost issues are intertwined. The whole debate comes down to whether we want government to absorb a significant part of the risk of insuring us against illness, which means we'll have to pay somewhat higher taxes, or whether we want to throw more and more of that risk onto individuals.

So let's welcome Ryan's call for considering his proposals on their merits. Yes, Republicans who invented "death panels" out of whole cloth and insisted, falsely, that Obama's health proposal was nothing but a "government takeover" have a lot of nerve complaining about the "demagoguery" against Ryan.

But in this case, turning the other cheek is practical advice. Ryan is not losing this argument because of what his opponents are saying, or because voters don't "understand" what he's up to. He's losing because Americans are alarmed that they are paying ever more for coverage, co-pays and deductibles. And they're weary of battling over health bills with insurance-company bureaucrats.

Americans may not trust government, but they don't trust insurance companies much either. So it should surprise no one that they are skeptical of any proposal likely to reduce the insurance guarantees the government already provides them. In particular, they don't want government to back away from its existing health care commitments if part of the purpose of retreating is to protect the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy.

Among Ryan's critics, everyone acknowledges that rising health care costs are a problem. One of the central purposes of the Affordable Care Act was to contain those costs. The reform cut Medicare spending by a half a trillion dollars over a decade -- spending reductions that Republicans freely demagogued in last year's election campaign.

Here's the basic difference before us: Conservatives want government to play less of a role in paying for health insurance. Progressives believe that government will inevitably play a growing role in the provision of health insurance because if it doesn't, more Americans will lose their coverage.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/06/02/no_need_to_demagogue_the_ryan_plan_110054.html

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