USA Today: 'RyanCare' won't work without new health law
…As part of a Republican spending proposal for 2012 and beyond, the House Budget Committee chairman wants to scrap Medicare as we know it and have seniors buy private insurance, beginning with new retirees in 2022...The GOP plan (let's call it RyanCare just to balance the scales), would treat seniors the same way, starting with people currently younger than 55 when they reach Medicare age. Unlike older people, who would continue to be under the protective umbrella of government coverage, they would be given a government subsidy to buy coverage in private markets, posing the question of which companies would want to insure them.
As things stand, the answer is few, if any. Before the creation of Medicare in 1965, the insurance industry wanted little to do with seniors. They are the costliest segment of society to insure, accounting for 33% of medical expenditures but only 12% of the population…
…there is that little issue of an individual mandate, the one that Republicans are challenging in court. If seniors are to have a right to buy private insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions, insurers would naturally demand such a mandate. They won't cover a population where people can wait until they get cancer or diabetes to buy coverage. That's not how insurance works. It's about sharing risk.
Alternatively, the Ryan plan could leave seniors with no right, or a limited right, such as a one-time chance at retirement age.
In either case, a very significant number of seniors would be left without protection. It's one thing to bash the individual mandate as a way to rally the opposition against the opposing party's agenda. It's another to do so while selling a major new program of your own imbued with the troubling consequences if it lacks the requirement…
It's time for the GOP to abandon their efforts to eliminate Medicare guarantee for seniors and join with Democrats to create jobs, strengthen the middle class, and reduce the deficit in a responsible way.