Plan would strand Medicare recipients

Charles Edgley, Las Vegas

Monday, April 18, 2011 | 2:05 a.m.

House Republicans have passed their budget — the Paul Ryan plan — to counter President Barack Obama’s version. Their plan would eliminate Medicare and substitute an insurance-based voucher system that forces Medicare recipients onto the private insurance market where they would be required to cut the best deal for themselves to the limits of the voucher.

Presumably the insurance companies who lobby and contribute heavily to Republican politicians will be on board with this congressionally mandated windfall. To be sure, Medicare has financial problems that need to be repaired, but turning society’s obligations to the sick and disabled over to for-profit insurance companies is sheer lunacy.