Sebelius: Ryan's plan is a killer

Good thing the Obama administration, in an effort to rev up that “serious discussion” we've been hearing about, would never succumb to the obnoxious political practice of scaremongering the elderly. Here’s HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius yesterday talking about Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal via Politico:

During testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, she said seniors “will run out of money very quickly.”

She continued, “If you run out of the government voucher and then you run out of your own money, you’re left to scrape together charity care, go without care, die sooner. There really aren’t a lot of options.”

Hyperbolic nonsense. Then again, Seblius has long lost her credibility. Even PoliFact has called the claim a “pants on fire” lie.

Remember how upset liberals pretended to be over the phrase “death panels”? A loaded term, no doubt. Yet, there is also no doubt President Obama's plan to cut spending relies heavily on the control and rationing of health care for seniors. The Payment Advisory Board, made up of 15 unelected and unaccountable “experts,” can institute broad cuts to reimbursement rates, access to doctors, and prescription drug benefits, and so on. This is indisputable. Even if we were to believe the nastiest accusations about Ryan’s plan, at the very least seniors would have more control over their own health care. Scary stuff.

Unfortunately, the Ryan proposal isn’t a voucher plan, anyway. But it is telling that any time a policy prescription turns, even meekly, towards market forces rather than bureaucratic control, this administration equates that capitalism with death, greed and pestilence.

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