In a recent Bloggingheads discussion with Glenn Loury of Brown University that was featured in the New York Times, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Mark Schmitt had some choice words for Paul Ryan's budget plan. Namely, it will be "a tidal wave, the grandaddy of all shifts" of risk from government onto the backs of individuals and families. But some people are getting out of their risks quite well. "We're all bearing more risk and banks are bearing less and less risk," he notes.
"The genius of well-designed programs," Mark points out, "is they socialize or share the risks that ought to be shared." Think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a whole host of other components of the social safety net. While he admits that there are "definitely situations where the skin in the game issue really does matter" and can cut down on overtesting and overtreating patients, "it's not a huge portion of the excessive health care costs we have." And the things in the Affordable Care Act that were going to help keep those costs under control "got demagogued as death panels," he points out.
Long story short: "It's a huge problem and I think that the voucher [for Medicare in Ryan's budget] is an oversimplified way of fixing it."
Check out the full conversation on past shutdowns, Obama's reelection campaign, and how Ryan changed our conversation: