Ezra Klein and the Washington Post (WaPo) are on a roll of intellectual honesty.
On September 3 his WaPo Wonkblog -- the mother's milk of Obama Journolisters -- explained that Ryan is right about Obama cutting over $500/$700 billion from Medicare beneficaries through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). On September 4, the Wonkblog explained that HHS Secretary Sebellius was pants-on-fire lying about Ryan cutting $6400 a year from seniors' income to pay for healthcare costs out of pocket.
So why doesn't WaPo go to the logical next step and explain:
- If
- private insurers can deliver exactly the same benefits of "Traditional Medicare" (which is one of the rules specificed in Wyden-Ryan)
- as so-called government-run "Traditional Medicare" delivers (at whatever level of benefits the Congress decides as also specified in Wyden Ryan)
- less expensively to the senior than the government can (as The Three Amigos "proved" they would have in 2009 in an article in JAMA last month if Wyden Ryan had already been enacted)
- and there is guaranteed issue (another rule specificied in Wyden-Ryan)
- Then
- seniors will select the private insurer.
If the private insurers can't deliver, then seniors will select the government. It's your choice: Fedex, UPS or the U.S. Postal Service. Either way we seniors get the same benefits. (Actually i guess only seniors in 2022 born after 1956 will get that choice.)
Why is the left so afraid of that simple choice?
-- Dennis Byron