The Ryan Plan Individual Mandates

I might be beating a dead horse here given how unlikely and unpopular the Ryan plan is but as more information about the plan comes to light, the plan keeps getting worse.

First, Ryan suggests that his plan is just like the plan members of congress receive. As I have pointed out here before the costs for this plan increase at a faster rate than Medicaid, but to make matters worse the claim by Mr. Ryan is untrue. In the Ryan plan, the increases given to the general population, increase at the rate of inflation yet the plan provided to congress members has no such cap. Given that the cost of health care increases at a much faster rate than inflation all Ryan is doing to "control" the costs of Medicare is shift the burden away from the government and back onto the American public. Most notably Senior Citizens.

Second, the problem of increasing health care costs in not an issue with Medicare. It is an issue with increasing health care costs. While Ryan is more than willing to cut costs for Medicare he does nothing to fix the actual problem of rising health care costs. For all of it's problems at least the ACA does attempt to reign in costs rather than let big business run all over the health care needing public (see also all American citizens).

Last and most disturbing for Republicans, Tea Party members and lovers of the Constitution, the Ryan plan contains not one but two individual mandates. These two links go into more detail on the two mandates, but the basic idea in the Ryan plan is for those not covered under Medicare, you get a tax credit of $2,300. And you only get this tax credit if you buy health care insurance. The big difference between the ACA and the Ryan plan on this point? Semantics. One is a tax break the other is a tax penalty. In the end your taxes are lower if you buy health care insurance and higher if you don't.

The second mandate is for Senior Citizens. In Ryan plan you pay into a system through payroll taxes until you reach 65 years of age and then you get vouchers. If you chose not to use the vouchers for health care you forfeit the money you paid into the system.

I personally don't have a big issue with the individual mandate and fail to understand why Republicans are so against it since they came up with it in the first place, have used it here in the Ryan plan and implemented a health care plan using the individual mandate in Massachusetts under leading Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. But if you hate the individual mandate then you might not be real excited about the Ryan plan.