Why the Ryan Plan Sucks and Why They Always Lie

This graph shows the relationship between the growth in healthcare prices and the CPI which measures the general growth in prices. Its pretty clear that healthcare prices have and will grow faster than the CPI. This illustrates how the Ryan plan will reduce our deficits. He wants to eliminate Medicare and give seniors a voucher that they can use to purchase healthcare insurance. The value of the vouchers would increase annually at the rate of the CPI. That means that beneficiaries would have to pay the difference between the CPI and healthcare price inflation. His solution fixes a major source of future budget deficits by passing the cost of healthcare inflation to senior citizens. His plan does nothing to lower the price of healthcare services.

So what is he lying about? He claims that he wants senior citizens to have the same kind of plan that members of Congress have. They get vouchers that they use to purchase health insurance just as he proposes in his plan. There is an important difference, however, that he neglects to mention. The value of the vouchers that he gets as a member of Congress increase each year at the rate of healthcare insurance premiums and not at the rate of the CPI. That is an important difference and not a little fib. Its a big lie!! I realize, of course, that we expect all politicians to lie to us. The GOP, in particular, has no other choice but to tell us lies. The party exists to serve the interests of the most reactionary segments of our society. Its very existence is predicated on its ability to convince ordinary Americans that it is serving their interests. It is pretty good at that with the help that it gets from conservative "think tanks" and its own media outlets.