Newt: Ryan's Plan Is Too "Radical" And We Need Some Sort Of Health Care Mandate

Shorter Newt: Yeah, I'm as much of a loose cannon as you remember.

On Ryan and Medicare.

The former House speaker and candidate for the GOP presidential nomination called it "radical change" and "too big a jump." Instead, he pushed for creating a system that allows people to pick other options than government-run coverage, so that they "voluntarily migrate to better outcomes, better solutions, better options."

And what are his better options? He'll let you know after we have a "national conversation". I'm not sure if that involves a listening tour or not.

So if you're up for kicking the Medicare down the road (until it comes crashing to a halt no later than 2024, if it lasts that long), Newt's your guy.

Either way, I'm sure the Democrats appreciate the campaign ad, "The GOP Medicare Plan Is Too Extreme For Newt Gingrich".

As for insurance mandates, Newt seems to think Mitt gave up too soon.

“I believe all of us — and this is going to be a big debate — I believe all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care,” he said, insisting there is “a way to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy.”

“It’s a system that allows people to have a range of choices that are designed buy the economy,” he said. “I don’t think having a free rider system in [health care] is any more appropriate than having a free rider system in any other part of the economy.”

Nice theory but as we've seen, it's not exactly the biggest problem we face in health care. You still have to subsidize the poor and it does nothing to control costs. But yeah, let's focus on that.

So too summarize, Newt is basically running to the left of Paul Ryan on entitlement reform and Mitt Romney on healthcare.

posted by DrewM. at 01:04 PM

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