This diary is an expansion of some comments I've made on the Ryan plan to kill Medicare and Medicaid, and why I think it's really important that we not fall into the trap of merely defending the status quo on Medicare and Medicaid.
First things first: we need to be clear that we DO have a problem with the long-term affordability of Medicare. We really cannot afford to allow continued spending growth on these programs, if we don't want them to eat the entire budget and more. The kind of growth in Medicare costs that we've seen is unsustainable, and needs to be pulled back. The Republicans want to do this by simply throwing the elderly and poor to the wolves by having the government wash its hands of the problem instead of working to fix it. Their plan is heartless, cruel, and amounts to a massive theft from all the people who have been paying into Medicare for decades and will continue to do so. And it's obvious that they don't really care about the budget and are just using it as a bludgeon against a program they don't like. But we need to offer the voters a comprehensive, credible alternative.
That alternative is getting our overall healthcare costs under control.
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