There you go again, arguing from authority.
Apparently you don't understand what that term means.
How, Tim? Medicare as of 2007 accounted for about 21% of total healthcare spending in this country.
And Medicaid adds even more, then there are other government programs. But 21% by itself is huge.
And it pays at a lower rate than other payers
Not consistently, but more often than not. Which doesn't change the fact that its pushing demand up.
You haven't made a case that it would be a good chance
Hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies would tend to push up the amount of resources spent on something, it may or may not push up the price (it would tend to, if your counting the subsidy itself as part of the price, but its possible it would not do so), but even if it doesn't it pushes up the quantity demanded.
But there is a certainty that there will be elders who won't get adequate care under the Ryan plan.
Under essentially any plan, and under essentially any circumstances for the plan, there is a near certainty that there will be elders who don't get adequate care. Humans and human institutions are not perfect, and they are not going to become perfect.
Under something along the lines of the Ryan plan its more likely that costs can be contained. If costs aren't contained then you have to start cutting off care and explicitly rationing, which can result in even worse care.
Also under the Ryan plan, seniors would still be getting more than they get now. If it fails to contain costs, then they will get less improvement then they otherwise would have gotten, but it will still be an improvement. Most of the increase in medical care is that we get more of it. We could provide the equivalent benefit to good care from the 50s for a lot less, but people wouldn't want that. In future decades the same will be true for the equivalent of what is good care now. Care that equals or exceeds that standard may not longer be considered decent care by the standards of that time, but people would still get more than what is good care now.
the problem with runaway costs is far worse in the US which is also the closest to a pure market driven system.
A lot of other countries, even ones that provide wider coverage, have more market driven plans. Medicare (Parts A and B), and Medicaid, have essentially no market driven aspects.
Also while other countries costs are starting from a lower base, they are increasing in a similar manner to costs in the US. They have the same problem with runaway costs that we have. |
