I've been reading a lot of articles about competing visions for Medicare. I'm obviously no authority and what I think carries all the weight of a guy who writes silly cartoons for a living. But I'm kinda interested from a journalism and voter standpoint, marvelling at the dysfunction of the national debate on all this.
My conclusion? My conclusion is that what Paul Ryan has disclosed of his plan — and what Mitt Romney has revealed of how much of his plan parallels that — is not enough for any reasonable person to evaluate. It reminds me of the many times my agent or lawyer has received an offer for my services and I ask, "Is it a good deal?" and he replies, "They've sent me a partial offer that looks like a good deal. I think they're expecting you to say yes or even start arranging your life to do it before they send us the rest of the terms." Often, when they do, the good deal doesn't seem like such a good deal.
Here, Kevin Drum asks a very basic, fundamental question about Ryan's Medicare proposals…and I think (but can't be sure) that this is one of the parts of it that Romney has embraced. Or might embrace. If you've followed his statements on this, you can see why it's hard to tell. But I don't think anyone can really say how his plan would work or if it would work without the answer to the question Kevin asks.
You can't fault Romney or Ryan for trying to be as vague about their plans as possible. They'd like to get elected and any plan to change something as vital as Medicare is going to have provisions some folks won't like. But I can fault reporters who are trying to discuss this thing and write about it and talk to these men without wringing out more details.
The Obama Administration isn't trying to hide the details of its vision for Medicare. It can't because they're all there in the Affordable Care Act. But it's also not being too forthcoming about what else, if anything, it wants to change. There's probably something and it would be nice if we knew what it was.
So basically what I'm saying here is that the various plans for changing/fixing Medicare that we're being asked to consider are a lot like those half-an-offers I sometimes receive. And the press is like if my agent or attorney expected me to accept or reject without hearing the rest of the terms.