Romney’s proposal, borrowing
heavily from the blueprint Ryan
has sketched out in Congress over
the past few years, is to introduce
optional private-sector plans alongside traditional Medicare. He hopes
that competition between the plans
on government-run exchanges
brings down the amount that the
government pays out, extending the
solvency of the program and decreasing the amount it contributes
to the annual deficit and national
debt. The changes would not affect
anyone in the program currently or
anyone 55 or older who will enter it
in the next decade.
“Everybody knows this is politically risky territory. Republicans
have their battle scars on entitlement reform,” Ryan said in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference, referring
to former President George W.
HUFFINGTON 08.26.12
“I THINK HE IS
LOOKING
TO GET IN
THERE AND
FIX SOME
THINGS AND
GET OUT.
I DON’T THINK
HE CARES.”
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
this, beginning this year, roughly
10,000 Americans are expected
to join the program every day for
the next 20 years. The annual
number of new enrollees during
this period will almost triple from
the 1995-2009 period, according
to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Health care costs continue to spiral upward, making Medicare the
biggest driver of the national debt
over the long term.
If left unchanged, Medicare
(along with Medicaid and Social
Security) will eventually crowd out
most other forms of federal spending, reducing—along with interest
on the national debt—the funds
available for other vital government
programs. And Medicare will no
longer be able to pay all its benefits
by 2024, according to the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the program.
Meanwhile, the national debt is
nearing $16 trillion. Economists
worry it is at or near a level that
costs the economy a full percentage point of growth a year. And
there is also increasing worry
about a debt crisis, where the
bond market loses faith in the
U.S. government’s ability to pay
back bonds, and the cost of borrowing for the government, and
then for the U.S. consumer, goes
through the roof.