GOP plan to change Medicare is rooted in bipartisan history (“premium support,” )

Ryan's plan is similar to the Obama 'insurance" reform bill in that the government would provide subsidies--or in Medicare "reform"--- they refer to them as 'premium support' (folks also call them vouchers which upsets Ryan). In all cases, the taxpayers pay the private market (health insurance companies) MONEY!!


http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/gop-plan-to-change-medicare-is-rooted-in-bipartisan-history/2011/04/26/AF8f2FRF_story.html


GOP plan to change Medicare is rooted in bipartisan history



By Amy Goldstein, Published: May 1 | Updated: Tuesday, April 26, 5:35 PM

Two powerful members of Congress, a Democrat and a Republican, were leading a federal commission to find a secure financial path for Medicare. Instead of relying entirely on public insurance for older Americans, they argued, the government should help seniors buy private health plans.

The idea was polarizing, and, by a single vote, the commission ended a year of debate by failing to recommend the change to the White House or Congress.


The Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare finished its work in 1999. But a dozen years later, the core ideas — championed then by a centrist Louisiana Democrat, Sen. John Breaux, and a brainy and acerbic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Republican Bill Thomas of California — live on in the proposal to change Medicare that the House has embraced in recent weeks.

The proposed change is known as “premium support,” because the government would pay part of the insurance premiums charged by private insurers that compete for older Americans’ business.

They are nothing but right of center.

Obviously the goal of these plans IS NOT providing affordable, adequate health-care.

Both parties of the Congress of The United States have lost interest in alternative funding of health care.