Ryan's proposed budget called "radical"

                                                    Link:

House GOP's 'Radical' Plan for Medicare, Medicaid

House Budget Committee Chairman, Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI), introduced his radical new budget proposal which would eliminate Medicare and completely privatize health care for seniors and would eliminate Medicaid altogether.  TPM breaks down what this means if you are elderly, disabled, or poor:

"Low-income Medicaid beneficiaries will lose their guaranteed benefits altogether. Currently, Medicaid is jointly financed by the federal government and states, which are required to provide comprehensive health care benefits to people in poverty. Ryan's plan turns the program into block grants for the states -- states get a bunch of cash from the feds and have to make the best of it. For many states, that will mean severe benefit rollbacks.

Seniors, and others on Medicare, would be in a slightly different predicament. Currently seniors 65 and over are guaranteed a defined benefit program: taxpayers finance the system, and the government agrees to pay for seniors' health care services (though seniors have to pitch in too). Ryan's plan would leave that system intact for anybody currently on Medicare, or expecting to be on Medicare within 10 years. For everyone else the program would be radically overhauled. Future beneficiaries would no longer have a single payer system to rely on. Rather, they'd be given a menu of private insurance plans to pick from, and subsidies to help pay their premiums. If those premiums skyrocket, that's on them. If the insurers themselves aren't required to pay for whatever the doctor orders, then the guaranteed benefits will erode."

Respected health care expert and Princeton economist, Uwe Reinhardt, states, "Under the defined contribution approach envisaged by the Rivlin-Ryan plan, most of the risk of future health-care cost increases would be shifted onto the shoulders of Medicare beneficiaries. This feature makes the proposal radical."

His plan would also give corporations a 10% tax break.  If the right's "Path to Prosperity," as they are calling this proposal, is anything like their "Roadmap for America's Future," it will increase the burden on the poor and middle class.  It will also reduce the burden for big business and the wealthy.  


Ryan's plan and more after the break...

Rep. Ryan's plan includes the following:

      -Government Spending Cap

 -Vouchers for Medicare

-Corporate tax rate cut

     -block grants for medicaid

Cutting out these programs altogether is not going to help.  People are still going to get sick.  This will just shift  the financial burden.  Our state and local taxes will severely spike.

American's are wising up to this.  They understand that they pay double for health care.  They know the system is a rigged monopoly health care system that is profitable for the health insurance special interests. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) asks, "What is going to happen with all of the people who are uninsured under his plan?  Ask him what happens when you shift costs back to state's and localities, whether it is saving money or just moving it."

My question:  If Rep. Ryan is so concerned with balancing the budget, how come the 10% corporate tax cut? How come when the Secretary of Defense said he could deal with a $178B cut, Rep. Ryan said $78B is good enough?  Why the double standards?