Ryan health plan will hurt seniors

Paul Ryan and his Republican followers must think the American public are idiots. To suggest that turning over Medicare to the insurance industry will reduce health care costs is ludicrous.

The CEO of Aetna made $23 million last year. CEOs of United Heath Care and other health insurance companies had equally extravagant compensation, to say nothing of the senior management at each of these companies.

In addition, stockholders get their quarterly dividend. All of this comes from premiums that the public or our employers pay to provide health care coverage. The secretary of Health and Human Services makes about $200,000 a year. No one in the government, including the director of CMS, makes anywhere near the inflated salaries of the private insurance industry.

Nor do we taxpayers expect to receive quarterly dividends from the profits of our government-sponsored health care.

So, only a fool would actually think that having American seniors buy their own coverage from the private insurance industry would save us money. Healthcare cost, as a percentage of income, would escalate beyond our imagination!

Suggesting otherwise sounds like something that would only come from the mouth of someone beholden to the insurance industry or someone who has no idea how the economy works.

Cathy O’Brien

Libertyville