Paul Ryan: I've Been Dreaming About Kicking the Poor off Medicaid Since I Was a Frat Boy
18 March 17
t the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan had an interesting exchange with National Review editor Rich Lowry about the AHCA’s changes to Medicaid:
Lowry: You have been very clear for years—and we’ve seen compelling PowerPoint presentations—about how the entitlements and entitlements growing out of control is driving the country into a ditch on the debt. And we have a president of the United States who basically seems pledged not to touch entitlements. Where does that leave us?Ryan: So, the health care entitlements are the big, big, big drivers of our debt. There are three. Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare. Two out of three are going through Congress right now. So, Medicaid—sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate. We’ve been dreaming of this since you and I were drinking out of a keg.[Laughter]Lowry: I was thinking about something else, he was thinking about reforming Medicaid.Ryan: I was, I was! I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. We are on the cusp of doing something we’ve long believed in.
When Paul Ryan was doing keg stands with his Delta Tau Delta brothers, Medicaid provided insurance almost exclusively to poor families on welfare, pregnant women, and the low-income elderly and disabled on Supplemental Security Income. Today, in part due to Obamacare’s expansion of the program, Medicaid covers more than 73 million struggling Americans. Ryan’s AHCA gradually ends funding for the Medicaid expansion and allocates Medicaid funding to states based on the number of Medicaid beneficiaries rather than the actual cost of covering them as is currently the case. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 14 million fewer Americans will be covered by the program by 2026 as a result. That number could balloon if the work requirements and block-granting currently being contemplated on the Hill make it into the final bill.
The prospect of so many being dropped from Medicaid and states footing a much larger share of Medicaid’s bills has spooked more moderate Republicans across the country—the majority of states where the federal government currently spends more than average on state Medicaid programs are deep red and 16 states with GOP governors took up the Medicaid expansion. It remains to be seen if the chance to fulfill Paul Ryan’s lifelong dream of denying the poor government insurance might tug at their heartstrings.
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http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/42545-paul-ryan-ive-been-dreaming-about-kicking-the-poor-off-medicaid-since-i-was-a-frat-boy
It is clear that Medicaid is the backdoor to single payer. Medicaid takes all the people that private, for-profit healthcare corporations don't want to insure. Medicaid is absolutely necessary.
Ryan is actually more dangerous than Trump. There are two reasons: 1) he is infinitely stupider in that he's an ideologue and cannot change or grow, and 2) he does not mind not being in charge of what he thinks or does. He's a pawn of the Koch Bros. They have bought him and he's satisfied with that. He does what he's told.
Medicaid should be expanding. The $54 billion Don Trumpino wants to give to transfer to the accounts of weapons corporations should be put into Medicaid
The only light at the end of this tunnel is that these TeaParty republicans now have total control of the Washington government and they are over playing heir hand. They may lose power in 2018 and 2020, if the opposition party plays its hand correctly. Sanders is doing the right things. The DNC is still licking its Nov. 2016 wounds and blaming the Russians.
People pay directly into Obamacare Medicare, and Medicaid. No one gets Medicare without paying into it. No one gets Obamacare without at least some premium. These are pension programs or insurance in the case of disability. Obamacare is a subsidy to those whose jobs just don't pay enough -- that is, a subsidy to the employers so they won't have to pay a living wage.
The real driver of debt is Pentagon or spending on the US empire which amounts to about $1.5 trillion per year. The Pentagon is only about 1/3 of this money. The Dept of energy pays for all nuclear weapons, Veterans affairs pays for the cost of retired and injured soldiers. Retirement pay for officers is another budget. The State department pays for most mercenaries. Military bases around the world are concealed into several department budgets.
At least Medicare, Obamacare, and Medicaid actually help people. War and Empire spending only hurts people.
Ryan is Nietzsche's "man of resentiment." He his the privileged man whose identity was formed on the belief that others have caused his own failures. This was also Rand's pathology. He wants to punish them. The great Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote a book about this man -- "Notes from the Underground." It is a perfect depiction of Ryan, if a little hyperbolic. There is no more despicable person in all literature.