The Wall Street Journal editorialists rush in where Romney fears to tread

The true believers in supply-side economics on the Wall Street Journal editorial board long for a policy debate that Romney is determined to avoid:

the one thing [Romney's speech] didn't do constitutes a major political gamble. Neither he nor the entire GOP convention made a case for his economic policy agenda. He and Paul Ryan promised to help the middle class, but they never explained other than in passing how they would do it.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Romney tossed out his five policy ideas almost as an afterthought. Energy got one sentence, education scored big with two. Neil Armstrong received almost as much speech time as what Mr. Romney would do specifically to spur faster growth and raise middle-class incomes.

From Palin to Ryan: a short history of demonizing IPAB

The battle between the parties over Medicare reform is a battle about how best to control costs.  Ryan and Romney rely exclusively on the Competition Fairy, -- the notion that if private insurers are induced to compete for Medicare policyholders, they will find ways to hold down costs.  If that fails, Ryan/Romney would most likely shift costs to seniors, with some ostensible protections for low-income beneficiaries.  The Obama administration, via the Affordable Care Act, seeks to use the government's market clout to change the rules of the payment game for providers, creating new incentives to reduce unnecessary care and new rewards and penalties focused on patient outcomes.

Can the Competition Fairy control healthcare costs?

As I've explored in the last three posts, the Medicare reform plan in Ryan's 2013 budget blurs Democratic attack lines because it looks very much like an Affordable Care Act for seniors (who, er, already have affordable care) while staking an at least ostensibly credible claim to preserve the Medicare guarantee.

The simplest counterargument was just voiced by a Florida voter to Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The counterargument is that Medicare is broken insofar as its cost to taxpayers has wildly outrun inflation and threatens to bankrupt the federal government.  The debate boils down to the best means to control costs while preserving the Medicare guarantee.