Breaking Health Care Research: A Response to the Critics of the Ryan Roadmap

Margot Crouch / December 15, 2010

Deficit reduction is in vogue right now thanks to the recent efforts of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, but Representative Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) “Roadmap for America’s Future Act” started it all as the first proposal to offer comprehensive solutions to the nation’s pending fiscal crisis, balancing the budget and eliminating national debt while also fixing the health care system.

It took a long time for lawmakers and pundits to get to the thoughtful conversation on deficit reduction that the Roadmap was intended to provoke. Instead, the proposal was initially met largely with criticism. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the Roadmap “a fraud,” saying that “Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.” Representative Louise Slaughter (D–NY) accused Ryan of trying to “phase out Medicare,” and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) lamented that the Roadmap “ends Medicare as we know it.” (more…)