Paul Ryan Medicare Proposal

Paul Ryan's Medicare spending cuts proposal:

• Eligibility for the existing Medicare program would not change for people who are age 55 or older by the end of 2011.
• People who turn 65 in 2022 or later years would get payments from the government to help them purchase private insurance.
• The payments would be higher for low-income people and lower for high-income people: people in the top 2 percent of the income distribution of the Medicare-eligible population would receive less than one-third of the subsidy which middle- and lower-income people would get.
• The payments for insurance would grow over time in pace with overall consumer prices, but not necessarily in pace with the increase in the cost of medical care.
• Starting in 2022, the age of eligibility for Medicare would gradually increase until it reached 67 in 2033.
• The federal government would change the Medicaid program for poor people into block grants to each state. Those grants would grow over time in pace with overall consumer prices and population growth.
• There would be no tax increases.

Well, wife and I would survive this change (if there is even a government or US in 248 weeks). But it can't pass in the progressive US.