As the election process parses through all of unjust, dreadful and mathematically inaccurate pieces of the Ryan-Romney plan to eliminate Medicare and Medicade, I think it is important to remember that what they really don't like is insurance. Consider what insurance, at it's essence, really is. You get a group of people together (republicans call this socialism) who recognize that some percentage of them will be visited my misfortune that will require money to redress. So every month everyone in the pool chips in some money to the insurance pool, so that when someone does have a problem, there's money to pay for it. Simple as that really.
Republican plans for insurance tend to augur against this fundamental approach. Consider medical savings accounts. They involve only putting money in your own bucket, to save only for your own care, least some undeserving shirker use some of their insurance premium for some thing frivolous like stiches or chemotherapy. Further MSA only benefit people who start with a lot of money in the first place.
The Ryan voucher plan plays into this approach as well with the added benefit, from his perspective, of not having the governement administer an insurance program. It does not matter to his ilk, that medicare has 3% overhead versus the 25% for private insurers.
To an extent, as long as, god forbid, they don't win, I think it may be a good thing that Ryan was selected. His positions pull back the curtain on the essence of the Ayn Rand "Virtues of Selfishness" philosophy which drives their opposition to anything representing a sense of community or community action. I am hopefull that some of the old school republicans will recoil from this and see Barack Obama as the more sensible, traditional centrist that his and come over to our side.
Perhaps it's time to start using the term "Obama Republican"?