Poor Newt Gingrich! What a beating he’s taken since he said on Meet the Press Sunday that Paul Ryan’s scheme to privatize Medicare was “too big a jump” for Americans, just like Obama’s health care law is. The former House speaker compared Ryan’s proposal to Obamacare, which he said he opposed because it imposed radical change, and he “would be against a conservative imposing radical change.”
“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors.”
A thunderstorm struck! Republicans were furious—their scorn tainting Newt as damaged goods for a presidential run. So what did Newt do? Instead of sticking to his belief that maybe sending future Medicare beneficiaries into the private market to buy health insurance wasn’t such a hot idea, he apologized to Ryan for making such out-of-bounds remarks.
It’s worth digressing here for a moment. Obama’s health law does much the same thing as Ryan’s plan. At its core, the law sends millions of uninsured folks into the private insurance market to buy coverage. The health reform law gives them government subsidies to buy insurance; Ryan’s plan gives seniors government vouchers to buy similar insurance. What’s the difference? Ryan’s plan could destroy Medicare as a social insurance program. Obama’s law was never social insurance to begin with.
The real problem with Gingrich’s remarks, though, was his call for more Medicare choices. Was Meet the Press interrogator David Gregory clueless about how Medicare currently works and all the engineering that Congress did a few years ago to give seniors more choices? Were the rest of the media that passed along that remark equally clueless? Medicare offers consumers so many choices now; most have no idea how to make them. This is something I have personal experience with. Having just signed up for Medicare, I needed to wade through ninety-six different private market options for covering the gaps in Medicare’s benefits. Oh, actually, it’s ninety-seven when I consider my retiree plan from a former employer. How many choices are enough? One hundred twenty-five? Two hundred? Two hundred twenty-five?
Good question to ask Gingrich the next time.
Would that any of the choices were any good.
#1 Posted by edward ericson jr., CJR on Wed 18 May 2011 at 08:47 PM
There's a great TED talk on the "Paradox of Choice". There's plenty of evidence that too many choices makes us more dissatisfied, not happier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM
Regarding Newt and his support for the insurance mandate: it's amusing to see the right wing driven to the same moderate conclusions embodied in the Affordable Care Act. Though not highlighted in his plan, I suspect Ryan's Medicare voucher proposal includes some mandates too. For example, there must be a mandate that requires private insurers to offer insurance to seniors. Otherwise, why would they sell insurance to sick people in their 80s?
It's also amusing to see both Newt and Mitt grovel under the weight of the rigid right wing ideology that abhors government mandates. My sympathies to anyone running on the Republican ticket - having your own ideas will simply not be tolerated!
#2 Posted by Rick Sullivan, CJR on Thu 19 May 2011 at 01:05 PM
Trudy, shouldn't you have pointed out that as House speaker, Gingrich pushed hard for a Medicare privatization/voucherization/spending cap bill in 1995 that was very similar to what Ryan and House Republicans passed last month? That and Gingrich's Medicaid block-grant plan were what led to the showdown with President Clinton that shut down the government. So Gingrich seems to have been in favor of Medicare voucherization before he was against it, before he was in favor of it again.
#3 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Thu 19 May 2011 at 02:12 PM