Mr. President, We Are Still Waiting For You To Answer Paul Ryan

Arguably the big star of yesterday's 7 1/2 hour long health care summit was Congressman Paul Ryan, In a feisty speech, Rep. Paul Ryan (R, WI) described the Democratic bill as a "ponzi scheme" full of accounting "gimmicks and smoke and mirrors" and explained why the official CBO projection was totally wrong. He explained that CBO does an excellent job given the parameters under they are directed to use, but those parameters are often not very realistic.

Washington Post columnist Chris Cillizza praised Ryan and said it was clear that the president regards Ryan as, “a serious thinker and adversary, while his GOP colleagues often deferred to him.”

Ryan attacked the plan with facts, not emotion and called the Senate’s package “an entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.” Ryan questioned proposed rules on health insurers, saying they discourage the goal of creating more competition. He said the Senate plan uses quote, “smoke and mirrors” to give the appearance of cutting costs

It is interesting that in the 24 hours since the end of the health summit, the President's ample response squad has not come up with responses to the Ryan's pointed charges including:

• "This bill does not control costs (or) reduce deficits. Instead, (it) adds a new health care entitlement when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have."

• "The bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending. The true 10-year cost (is) $2.3 trillion."

• "The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that's really reserved for Social Security. So either we're double-counting them or we don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits."

• "The bill takes $72 billion from the CLASS Act (long-term care insurance) benefit premiums and claims them as offsets."

• "The bill treats Medicare like a piggy bank, (raiding) half a trillion dollars not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program."

• "The chief actuary of Medicare (says) as much as 20% of Medicare providers will either go out of business or have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries."

• "Millions of seniors who have chosen Medicare Advantage (Medicare through a private insurer) will lose the coverage that they now enjoy."

• "When you strip out the double-counting and ... gimmicks, the full 10-year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit."

• "The 'doc fix' (restoring cuts in Medicare reimbursements) costs $371 billion ... a price tag (that) made the score look bad. (So) that provision was taken out, and (put) in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending."

• "Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up? If you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we're bending it up. He's claiming that we're going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have."

If the President's political "war room" had an answer to Ryan's points they would have been splattered all over the mainstream media in time for this morning's news programs.  But the truth is they have no answer. Paul Ryan was armed with truth, the Obamacare bill is going to break the federal treasury and no political war room can fight that.