... in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Ryan said Medicare privatization is on.Ryan and the rest of the congressional Republicans know this will be unpopular, so the plan, apparently, is to say that they had no choice because of that awful Obamacare -- even though Republicans wanted to do this long before Obamacare was passed (even before Obama was president).
“Your solution has always been to put things together, including entitlement reform,” asks Baier, using Republican code for privatizing Medicare. Ryan replies, “If you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, you have to address those issues as well. ... Medicare has got some serious issues because of Obamacare. So those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.”
Chait adds:
Ryan tells Baier, “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” This is false. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of the truth. The Medicare trust fund has been extended 11 years as a result of the passage of Obamacare, whose cost reforms have helped bring health care inflation to historic lows. It is also untrue that repealing Obamacare requires changing traditional Medicare. But Ryan clearly believes he needs to make this claim in order to sell his plan, or probably even to convince fellow Republicans to support it.Everything bad in the next four years is going to be Obama's fault. They're going to call the next recession "the Obama recession." They're going to give massive new tax cuts to the rich and blame the skyrocketing deficits on Obama. Oh, and any terror attacks on President Trump's watch will be because Obama made America weaker, even if it's four years from now and the Homeland Security secretary is an self-promoting wingnut clown like Sheriff David Clarke or Joe Arpaio. And the average American won't know any better.
