Included in Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” is a plan to save Medicare by the allowance of market forces, along with government subsidies.
Nancy Pelosi leads seniors in chants of “Don’t take my Medicare away” like some schoolgirl protesting the removal of soda from the school cafeteria.
President Obama, in a budget speech light on particulars, stokes the partisan flames with cries of how the autistic, needy and elderly will be left out in the cold because Paul Ryan offers a new approach meaning “the end of Medicare as we know it.”
At the end of 2009, Medicare Part A had unfunded liabilities totaling $37 trillion. Add in Parts B and D and the total is at $90 trillion. Unfunded liabilities ? the difference between benefits promised to current and future beneficiaries and what is collected in dedicated taxes and Medicare premium. This is a huge, and growing, part of our debt problem and a structural change is needed.
No, proposing a tax increase on the rich as a big part of the solution diverts attention from a serious remedy, as does criticizing Ryan’s proposal.
You might not agree with Paul Ryan’s market approach but re-arranging the deck chairs is not a solution to a very serious debt problem.
Trillions in unfunded liabilities say the onus is on the President and the Democrats to get serious about putting an honest alternative on the table and making a deal to put an end to Medicare as we know it.
— Tony Blasco, Lamony
