Ryan’s Medicare Plan Would Be a Windfall for Insurance Companies

If enacted, the Ryan plan would represent a windfall of unprecedented proportions for insurance corporations and other businesses.

called “the personal responsibility crusade” — making people more responsible for the management and financing of the major economic risks they face — in his 2006 book, The Great Risk Shift.

usedoften before he retired in 2005, the year he made $22.2 million. It was also a sound bite favored by the CEO I used to work for, CIGNA’s Ed Hanway, before he retired in 2009. Hanway’s total compensation that year was almost $111 million.

The problem is, most Americans have far less skin to put in the game than CEOs like Rowe and Hanway or even Rep. Ryan, who makes $174,000 as a member of Congress. The median household income in the United States was just $49,777 in 2009, which was down $335 from 2008.

That decline, by the way, was the continuation of another trend that began as the Clinton era was ending and the George W. Bush era was beginning. Median household income in the United States peaked in 1999 at $52,388 (adjusted for inflation). It fell more than $2,000 during the eight years of the Bush administration.

During that time, health costs rose dramatically. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average annual health insurance premium for family coverage increased from $5,791 in 1999 to $13,770 in 2010. The average amount that workers contributed out of their own pockets for family coverage increased from $1,543 to $3,997.

If workers are having this much difficulty saving for retirement, where in the world will they find the money to pay what Rep. Ryan would make them pay for Medicare coverage when they turn 65?

Wendell Potter is the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.

He blogs here