Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal is like turning a pension into an underfunded 401k.
the central idea behind Paul Ryan’s prescriptionfor Medicare is that it would turn the program from a defined benefit programto a defined contribution program. think 401k versus pension . the effect would work the same way for thegovernment that it did for the corporations that cancelled theirpensions. It would shift risk from the payer to the beneficiary.
Ryan’s vision of Medicare breaks the covenant that Lyndon Johnson forged withthe American people when he said, “No longer will illness crush and destroy thesavings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they mightenjoy dignity in their later years.” Ryan wants to break that covenant. It isn’t he isn’t smart; I think he is. It’s not that he isn’tcreative. the problem is that he has no intellectual capacity foranalysis beyond his ideological lynchpin: Ayn Rand. In this, heresembles a young Alan Greenspan. His capacity for overreach, for hubris,for the “young gun-ness” of it all equals Greenspan’s, who was the primarycheerleader for a system of free market excesses that led to ourmeltdown. And as to Greenspan, even the thought of his vaunted 1990s pronouncements is enough to make one shuddertoday: ” Capitalismis based on self-interest and self-esteem; it holds integrity andtrustworthiness as cardinal virtues and [blah blah blah...] ”
Readthe complete article at Open Salon: open.salon.com/blog/steve_klingaman