This is the face of the future for Republican Health Care and Social Security Reform – memorize it!

Now remember all of those terrifying Town Hall meetings in the Summer of 2009, where all you heard about on a daily basis were “Death Panels” and Medicare cuts, and Big Brother’s government bureaucrats making decisions about both the quality and quantity of health care you were going to receive?

You have nothing to worry about.  Obama’s Health Care Reform is likely all but dead, and many of you will try to vote the Republicans back into power in this Fall’s mid-term elections so that they can protect you from Obama’s scary Socialist Big Government.  Hip, Hip, Hooray (or is that Horror?) for their brand of Capitalism and individual freedom.

Except for one thing.  The Republicans do not intend to protect you from anything (remember, that’s the point of shrinking government support).  Including going broke in your retirement years from either rising health care costs, or diminishing retirement income.  Think I am kidding?  This is not hyperbole!

Ignore what follows at your own peril . . .

At the 2009 CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) - this is the Superbowl of Conservative power-brokers, with Glenn Beck as their 2010 Keynote Speaker - Republican Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed that Medicare be completely dismantled, and replaced by a system of vouchers for seniors to purchase health insurance in the private sector. 

Make no mistake about it:  this will be the platform for the Republicans’ answer on how to reform health care once they are back in power.  Do you doubt that?  Well, Fox News reported that Ryan has been annointed as “the leader of future of the conservative movement.”  That’s code for Republican Presidential nominee.  He is their visionary, and here is his vision for American retirees’ Medicare and social security safety nets.

According to The Economist magazine, and an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Ryan’s “daring plan” will stimulate both the health insurance industry, as well as the health care industry, while slowing the growth of government health care spending;  which is great if you are a Republican rising star like Ryan, who receives almost 40% of his political campaign contributions from health-related industries and their beneficiaries.

What’s not so great for retirees is that the CBO analysis shows why this is so great for the government and those industries:  the dollar value of those vouchers you are going to get under Ryan’s plan will not rise as quickly as the projected costs of health care.  Which means retirees will have higher out-of-pocket expenses as time goes on.  And you can be certain that if those costs are going up, your private health insurance will also be going up at an equally rising rate – after all, they have to make a profit.  That’s Capitalism.  Right?

Another great thing about this plan – but not so great for retirees – is that the cost to the government will continue to grow more slowly because, as the CBO projections show, people will use less health care when they have to increasingly pay more and more out of their own pockets.  Remember last summer when Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers scared you about the government rationing health care?  Now you can do it to yourself!

In essence, Ryan’s Republican plan would make the government go broke more slowly than American retirees will, while temporarily keeping this growing health care crisis at bay another decade or two, and increase the profits of health-related industries along the way, forcing you to resort to receiving less and less health care as you grow older. 

Don’t believe me?  Do the math.  It’s really that simple.

And Remember:  Under the Republican Healthcare Reform Plan you will NOT even have Medicare supplemental insurance to fall back on.  You wanted government out of your life . . . you got it!

So be happy you are not going to get Health Care Reform from Obama.  I don’t mean to alarm you – especially after the Republicans scared you sufficiently enough to ensure health care reform would not get passed.  After all, now they are free to begin selling you their notion of a “free market” alternative.   Caveat emptor (“buyer beware”).

And recall the proverbial admonishment: “Be careful what you wish for . . . you just might get it.”

Happy retirement, America. 

P.S.  Ryan’s “free market plan” also calls for Social Security to be completely dismantled, and privatized.  Surely the impact of that policy is not lost on anyone after the global financial markets collapsed for the second time in a decade – losing almost 40% of their value in both downturns, with average investment returns for the past ten (10) years of about 1%.  What if your social security safety net was invested there?  Hint: it’s not a “free market” proposal - the government will limit your choices on how you can invest your social security retirement.  Are you really so naive as to think Wall Street won’t have their greedy fingers in that enormous financial pie?  They own Washington, D.C.!