A week ago at this time, pundits were speculating that Paul Ryan had so alienated the right wing with his tepid support for soon-to-be-presidential-loser Donald Trump that he might not retain his job as Speaker of the House when a new Congress is sworn in early next year.
What a difference a week makes.
Today, because 45% of Americans chose not to vote, Ryan finds himself with a surprising opportunity to enact his long-held dream of shredding America’s social safety net like Oliver North going after a filing cabinet full of Iran-contra documents. And first up on his chopping block is Medicare.
Ryan’s plan is to replace the totally-not-going-broke Medicare with what he calls “premium price supports.” This is fancy wonk-speak for “vouchers that would be used to buy private insurance but would not keep up with the cost of inflation, thereby saddling seniors with enormous additional healthcare expenses out of their own pockets.” Good luck stretching out those Social Security checks, folks! Assuming Ryan doesn’t gut that next.
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/15/paul-ryan-has-medicare-in-the-crosshairs-ryans-been-gunning-to-kill-the-program-for-years-and-he-senses-his-moment/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow