Paul Ryan’s Health Care Plan Part 2: Path to Prosperity

Second in a two-part series on the path from ObamaCare to Paul Ryan’s Roadmap 2.0 plan for health care. Read Part 1 here about targeting ObamaCare’s economic war and Constitutional challenge. In Part 2, we take Paul Ryan’s path from our current culture of dependency to health care reform.

As an abrupt “about face” to soaring government spending for White House-sponsored programs, Rep. Paul Ryan announced his much-needed fiscal recovery plan, A Roadmap for America’s Future Version 2.0. Ryan calls the American people “to restore a national character rooted in individual initiative, entrepreneurship, and opportunity.” [1] We will not do so unless we restore the true role of government.

The Ryan health care plan is born out of two inescapable conclusions: ObamaCare is unsustainable and health care must be reformed.

Here are the grim facts:

* Health care is the fastest-growing burden on American families and businesses, adding 7% in overall costs each year.[2]

* In 2007, it cost an estimated $2.1 trillion to manage and fund health care, nearly twice per person than any other industrialized nation.[3]

* Based on 2009 estimates, 50 million people – 19 percent of the non-elderly population – would lack access to health insurance at some time in 2010.[4]

* Federal government spends more on Medicare and Medicaid (21.7%) than national defense (17.8 percent, including war costs).[5]

* Health care costs take up 15.2% of GDP.[6] If the growth rate continues, health care costs will consume 20 percent of GDP by 2016.[7]

In a grave assessment by Rep. Paul Ryan on entitlement programs, “…a failure to reform puts those programs, and their benefits, in greater jeopardy; and the longer reform is delayed, the more wrenching the inevitable changes will be.”[8]

What does real reform look like?

* Reform Medicare and Medicaid by giving a set amount to individuals in these programs to buy private insurance (voucher system) that controls cost, allows individuals choice of coverage, and level of care.

* Reconnect healthcare consumers with healthcare providers via Health Savings Accounts and high deductable insurance plans.

* Tax credits for individual health insurance.

* Interstate sale of health insurance promoting competition between health insurers.

* Medical malpractice liability reform.

* High-risk pools, at the state level, for those who cannot obtain health insurance because of preexisting conditions.

Healthcare reform is needed, but Obamacare is not the answer. The road to reform leads to repairing a greater measure of America’s brokenness beyond health care – but only if we take the journey.

By scrapping the high-cost of ObamaCare (remember, government has no incentive to be efficient) in favor of “healthy” market-based competition (pleasing customers on a level playing field) costs go down. Unraveling serious health care problems is possible by connecting consumers to providers with greater assistance by the state – rather than federal government.

Instead of “big government” serving those it made dependent through high-cost programs (repealing ObamaCare is the start), the government role is changed (no small task with Progressive power elites in office) to create a level playing field for all Americans as much as possible. The road to reform untangles the Progressive’s “culture of dependency.”

60 Years of Dependency

Our modern-day Progressive reality is borne out of the 1930s New Deal and 1960s Great Society. Through numerous interventions by Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, our country was devastated financially and in spirit. New Deal programs (e.g. Social Security, Works Progress Administration) led government away from “limited powers” of the Constitution (Jefferson, Hamilton) and changed the relationship of the American people to government by increasing dependence.[9]

The Great Society (President Johnson learned from Roosevelt) brought greater federal expansion of entitlement programs (e.g. food stamps, federal housing, Medicare, Medicaid) and other big spending (e.g. Interstate Highway expansion, Vietnam War).

Soaring budget increases through Obama-sponsored entitlements and spending dwarf the New Deal and Great Society expansions. No federal program reveals President Obama’s plan for big government dependence and spending more than ObamaCare. Our federal debt now exceeds GDP[10] and costs to service the debt may triple by 2016.[11]

With refreshing clarity, Ryan describes the Progressive “deal” with worried Americans and its dangerous result. “Rarely before have the alternatives facing America been so starkly defined. For the past year, Washington’s leaders have taken an already unsustainable budget outlook and made it far worse. They have exploited Americans’ genuine economic anxieties to justify an unrelenting and wide-ranging expansion of government.”[12]

Our economy cannot stand under the economic weight of ObamaCare, much less the total federal regulatory burden. An uncertain future ahead, we are “perilously close to a ‘tipping point’” with little likelihood of turning back.[13]

tipping point  (‘tɪpɪŋ)

— n

the crisis stage in a process, when a significant change takes place[14]

Two Americas, Only One Choice

“Progressive America” over the last 60 years, was built on an attraction to bigger-than-ever federal spending and entitlement programs with government as the “middle man.” Our future “Prosperous America” is forged by the initiative and creativity of Americans backed by government creating a level playing field to the degree possible.

If we do nothing, “Progressive America” continues on. “Prosperous America” will be ours only if we fight for it. Starting with repealing ObamaCare and serious health care reform, we can regain our financial footing, and loosen the hold of dependency.

The path to health care reform is now blocked by Progressives in power (the House quickly passed Ryan’s budget legislation and the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected it). ObamaCare remains the law of the land until the American people act to elect new leadership in 2012.

Learn more and take action in the fight to get our country back on the road to prosperity:

* Read Dr. Rick Skoog’s important article on the ObamaCare’s financial failure, reduced care, and broken promises.

* Read Rep. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap introduction to see how Progressive policies from the 1930s have led to a culture of dependency and a tipping point.

* Find out whether your Senator and Representative voted for ObamaCare in 2010 and if they support the Ryan Roadmap approach now.

Do your part to make needed changes in our next White House and Congress. The cost of Obamacare to our nation is too great – both financially and for our personal freedoms. Work in your community to mobilize volunteers (Tea Party, caucus) to get out the vote. Together we can win the 2012 fight but we must act quickly.