Paul Ryan to be Romney's running mate?

[Willie Escalade]

Welcome to the "United" States.

[Stavros]

I read in the UK papers some comments Ryan made about the NHS in the UK, and tracked it down to an article he co-authored with someone called Peter Wehner in the Wall St Journal from 2009. The article, which is about the perils of 'Big Government' is linked at the end, but I offer my comments on the following two paragraphs as an indication that Ryan and friend are either incapable of doing some research, or can't be bothered.

Nationalizing health care will be profoundly detrimental to the quality of American medicine. In the name of cost control, the government would make private investment in medical innovation far riskier, and thus delay the development of potentially lifesaving treatments.
It will also put America on a glide path toward European-style socialism. We need only look to Great Britain and elsewhere to see the effects of socialized health care on the broader economy. Once a large number of citizens get their health care from the state, it dramatically alters their attachment to government. Every time a tax cut is proposed, the guardians of the new medical-welfare state will argue that tax cuts would come at the expense of health care -- an argument that would resonate with middle-class families entirely dependent on the government for access to doctors and hospitals.


First, the NHS was created in 1948, and as far as I know there has never in all those years been a claim that ‘private investment in medical innovation’ has been regarded as a risk. There are reasons for this:

1) the NHS does not have a monopoly of heath care provision in the UK, because the private sector was not abolished. It has always been possible for individuals to purchase private health insurance and be treated in private clinics and hospitals.

2) Investment in health care is made from numerous sources within the UK, private and public, and from outside the UK, the most obvious being the giant multi-national pharmaceutical companies.

3) If anything, the breadth of the NHS and the overall quality of its provision has made it a crucial ‘laboratory’ for the testing of new drugs and procedures.

4) Innovative heart surgery was pioneered by Sir Maghdi Yacoub at the NHS Harefield Hospital in Hertfordshire.

Magdi Yacoub - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


A recognised world centre of excellence offering innovative treatment of new born babies has been based at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond St, London for decades. A pioneer of the research into the links between tobacco and lung cancer, Richard Doll was based in Oxford for his career, working for the NHS. I could go on and on, but hope the few examples I give expose as a simple distortion of the truth what Ryan and Wehner say.

Second, there has never been a socialist government in the UK. Even when Labour won a landslide victory in 1945, it did not enact socialism ‘red in tooth and claw’. The transport network, the coal mines and the steel industry, and the utilities (gas, water, electricity) were all brought into public ownership. But the creation of the NHS as pointed out above, did not monopolise health care –private health care was available. A state education service was created, but private education was allowed to remain. The pharmaceutical industry, banking and insurance, entertainment, broadcasting, air and sea transport –none of these were brought into public ownership. The monarchy and the House of Lords were not abolished.


In the case of the creation of a dependency culture, I offer security of health care, or the human right to medical treatment. And most people pay for the NHS, it is not free, what they get in return is access to a general practitioner, the right to be treated there or in hospital free at the time of need and use; the state from my taxes funds in part the university medical schools that produce the full range of medical specialists from doctors through to haematologists; and for the most part the NHS has been ring-fenced against major cuts even when taxes have been cut, as they were when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. And the first cuts to the NHS budget were introduced by what Ryan and Wehner would call the ‘Socialist’ govt of James Callaghan, in 1976.

I am not dependent on the NHS, I pay for it, and it gives me, for the most part, an excellent service. Taxes have been cut without undermining the service, although there are plenty of funding issues across the country. It is not perfect, but it works.

Ryan and Wehner may not be perfect either, but can they think? Even better –do some research?

the Ryan/Wehner article is here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123207075026188601.html

[Prospero]

"Man should not consider his material possessions his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need."
Thomas Aquinas.

A thought GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan should keep in mind now he is proclaiming Aquinas as his guiding light over his previous guru Ayn Rand.

[buttslinger]

American's approval rating of Congress is ten percent. TEN PERCENT!!! HITLER get's higher numbers!
There is no high road anymore.

[trish]

If you polled them privately, Hitler would have higher numbers among the tea bagging party.

[giovanni_hotel]

"Man should not consider his material possessions his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need."
Thomas Aquinas.

A thought GOP Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan should keep in mind now he is proclaiming Aquinas as his guiding light over his previous guru Ayn Rand.

Hilarious....in a good way.
Ryan is a fraud and his sterling reputation as the ideological wunderkind of the Republican party is going to be exposed as a hoax in the next couple of months. His legislative track record during the Bush administration is going to turn the Teabaggers against him.

Ryan is a wonk and a numbers cruncher, a master of 'fuzzy math', but he isn't gifted in speaking to the hearts of voters.

Joe Biden is going to undress Ryan in the VP debates IMO.

[flabbybody]

Ryan is now apologizing because, God forbid, he requested a piece of Obama stimulus money for two troubled companies in his district that employ many folks whom he represents. Reminds me of Gov Jindal saying he'll turn down Medicaid expansion in Louisiana because he's a fiscal conservative, even though it would benefit hundreds of thousands of destitute state residents. People in Louisiana are still dying of tuberculosis in 2012 simple because they go decades without seeing a doctor.

Republicans basically say... "look, I'm a shit head to the people I'm supposed to represent but please vote me into higher office so I can fuck an even larger constituency"

You Brits must think American politics is plain foolishness.
But in the end, this Romney-Ryan ticket will lose badly. Our politics are stupid but we're not

[flabbybody]

If you polled them privately, Hitler would have higher numbers among the tea bagging party.

they're probably unaware that Hitler eliminated unemployment by putting Germans to work in a massive public works spending program. That's how we got the autobahn. not exactly fiscal conservatism.
but I doubt most tea baggers went to school long enough to learn world history.

[buttslinger]

The Ryan budget was never expected to pass by anybody, it was just a response to the democrat's claim that republicans complain but offer no alternatives.
This is part of the same game where you want fifty cents so you ask for a dollar. You never give the other side anything, even if it's something you want.Make them pay for it. Two percent of Americans owning fifty percent of everything proves this bullshit works!!!!
The Karl Rove plan almost put Karl in jail. ALMOST. Now CEOs are sending him checks for millions!!

[giovanni_hotel]

If you submit a budget to Congress, it's beyond the level of a 'talking point' or a debate starter.

Why publish pure shit with your name on it then say, 'just kidding'???
This is spin by the GOP and Romney campaign to suggest that Paul Ryan's budget was never meant to pass Congress.

Ryan doesn't have more important things to do as a legislator than writing phony bills he doesn't expect to pass?? What an asshole Ryan is.