Ryan's Sick Plan

On May 3, 2012, the Huffington Post reported the following story:

“The co-creator of the concept that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is relying upon to reform Medicare no longer thinks it will work [Henry] Aaron and former Urban Institute president Robert Reischauer came up with the idea of “premium support” in 1995, after the failure of then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's bid to reform the health care system… …The basic idea is simple: let people pick their health insurers in the private market, subsidize the premiums, and competition will drive down costs. That's the theory behind Ryan's plan.”

 I was an attorney for the state agency that provides regulatory oversight of California's health insurance plans. Though, I have little legal experience with the Medicare system, I share Henry Aaron's concerns about deregulation of the commercial heath care insurance industry generally, and the strain that it places on health plan enrollees. In my opinion, health insurance plans are an inefficient and costly way of delivering health care services. For example, as much as 34 cents of every premium dollar goes to plan administrative costs. The notion of excluding potential enrollees due to pre-existing conditions is corporate malfeasance at its worst.

 Ultimately, it's about policy (i.e., fiscal) choices. To that end, the GOP plunged the country into two unnecessary wars costing trillions of dollars and then enacted trillion dollar tax breaks for the wealthy. And now, under Paul Ryan, the GOP proposes draconian, irresponsible cuts to Medicare and other social programs with even more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. To his shame, President Obama has done little to implement meaningful health care policy (I do not consider the Affordable Care Act a step in the right direction). A single payer system is the only viable alternative.

 Conservatives screech words such as "freedom" and "choice" and in doing so, place health care in the context of free market principals. Adequate health care is not about the free market. Adequate, accessible and affordable health care is a right.