Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI think that both JNCP and NoVAH have mentioned this was going to be offered.
Wyden-Bennett was the health care bill I favored and although I can mount a defense of ACA, it is huge, where Wyden-Bennett was relatively elegant, and it was partisan where W-B was not.
Paul Ryan thinks before he speaks, a trait he shares with Ron Wyden. I have linked to Ezra’s take, but I really hope to get NoVAH’s.
Also, I want to know if this may become the law.
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All Things in Moderation 
I can see how some could see agreeing to this plan as the usual democratic caving, but if this plan works for Medicare it will create a pretty strong argument that we should try it outside of Medicare as well. Obviously given the population differences it isn't a simple comparision, but it would sure make the argument easier. Demonstration projects are occurring all over the place right now and this proposal is just sort of a macro version of all the other micro demonstration projects and pilot programs.
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If I were in Congress I'd want to add a provision that opens up Medicare to younger people who want to buy in. Let the consumer decide which is the best deal.
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A much better approach, I think, that Ryan's original voucher plan, which was never going to happen.
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I see this as some sort of Trojan Horse version of Ryan's original plan. He still wants to kill Medicare but this time by slow strangulation rather than a bullet to the head.It seems odd that Ryan is changing horses midstream right as support for his original plan became a GOP litmus tests.Even stranger is that Wyden would deliberately undercut one of the Democrats strongest talking points a year before the election.
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An annual bidding process to create a benchmark?This is my suspicion: In the US, it is the cheapskate that wins the auction. It doesn't matter that they will choose the second-least expensive; every single one of them will be low-balled.It is my understanding (oh, yeah, I could be wrong!), that in Europe, for roadwork at least, it isn't the cheapest bid, but the one that provides the best product for the money.Here, it is just the one that says they can do it the cheapest.We have budget-overruns out the yin-yang because of this. Same thing will happen here.We will still have the cheapest return for healthcare possible at the most expensive price.
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I'm going to drop a couple of links in here just to give the progressive perspective, we're not all moderates or conservatives after all, re the Ryan/Wyden plan. First up is David Dayen who has studied this stuff at least as much as Ezra Klein, if not a little more. I realize it's another FDL piece but he could post at the WSJ and I'd still link to him.I’ve heard a few people say that this is the exchanges with a public option, and that’s not all wrong. But there’s a difference between imposing exchanges with a public option on the individual market and imposing it on a working single payer system. The former would be a step forward; the latter is a step backward. This fractures the market for seniors, and any smaller pool would raise overall costs. This degrades the market, by replacing a more efficient program with this Rube Goldberg approach. Ryan and Wyden bend over backwards to claim that the premium support would be robust enough, and that nobody would be discriminated against, and all the rest. If that’s the case, why make the change at all? Ryan and Wyden would say that competition is the reason: that putting private insurance companies in competition with Medicare would lower the cost. The experience of Medicare Advantage shows just the opposite; the costs of Medicare Advantage are rising. Similarly, in the individual market, where companies allegedly compete with one another right now, costs rise much higher than in Medicare. Health care just isn’t the same kind of market from the laissez-faire capitalism textbooks. The invisible hand doesn’t deliver the same results when someone is sick and needs a doctor right away.And this one's from Igor Volsky.So here, in a nutshell, is the problem: In an interview with the Washington Post, “Ryan and Wyden acknowledged that their plan might not bring in more savings than under the current law.” Yet they’re willing to set the nation on an untested path of private competition that breaks up the large market clout of Medicare (which is now experimenting with more efficient ways to pay providers) and pushes seniors into less efficient private plans. It moves the health care system closer to the Ryan ideal in which future Congresses would be able to reduce federal costs by eating away at the premium credit seniors receive. Over time, Medicare will start bleeding beneficiaries, becoming an ever smaller program.
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