Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114Summary:
(I would bold the most egregious parts, but it's all egregious, so read if you have a chance; there's much more at the link as well)
The Ryan plan would eliminate traditional Medicare, most of Medicaid, and all of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), converting these health programs largely to vouchers that low-income households, seniors, and people with disabilities could use to help buy insurance in the private health insurance market. Under Ryan’s plan, the value of the vouchers would fall further behind the rising cost of health care with each passing year, so they would purchase less health coverage over time. By 2080, Medicare would be cut 76 percent below its projected size under current policies, according to CBO. In other words, by 2080, the vouchers that would replace Medicare would receive one-quarter of the resources that Medicare would otherwise use.
The Ryan proposal would also replace the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with a refundable tax credit for people to buy health coverage — the equivalent of a voucher. By eliminating the tax exclusion without providing incentives for employers to continue offering health coverage, the plan would likely cause a substantial decline in employer-based coverage.
The Ryan proposal thus would sharply reduce or eliminate all major forms of health insurance that spread risk by pooling healthy and less-healthy people together on a large scale. It would do so without taking significant action to create viable new pooling arrangements. Most Americans — including the poor and the elderly — would largely be left to purchase insurance on their own with a voucher or tax credit in an insurance market that would remain largely unreformed. In particular, insurance companies could continue to charge people much higher premiums based on age, gender, or health status.
The Ryan plan also largely lacks the kinds of provisions in the Senate- and House-passed health reform bills that are designed to slow health care cost growth by pushing health care providers to become more efficient and economical. Under the Ryan plan, the burden of reducing health care expenditures would fall primarily on beneficiaries, who would face steadily rising health care costs with a steadily diminishing amount of health insurance and might therefore forgo needed health care.
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