A True Fiscal Conservative, Ctd

Yglesias doesn't approve of Rep. Paul Ryan's alternative budget:

One could speak about this in detail, but in brief my take is that it’s totally unworkable. The whole reason Medicare was put in place in the first place, rather than just hiking Social Security benefits, is that the individual insurance market doesn’t work and it especially doesn’t work for senior citizens. As I observed in a little-read December 29 post, this would change if congress passed the Obama health care plan. If Obama’s efforts to create a viable regulatory framework in which individuals can buy private health insurance (a) pass congress, and (b) turn out to work well and be popular, then you can imagine a version of Ryan’s plan being put into place. But in the absence of that kind of reform, I just don’t see how you can do this, which is presumably why the implementation is delayed all the way to 2021 which helps Ryan avoid needing to think about implementation details.

But look: this is a real debate about ways to solve our problems. More, please. On both sides.

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