New York Times reporter Robert Pear and his editors try to resurrect a zombie proposal by the anti-Medicare zealots to displace the guaranteed benefits structure of Medicare. Its just another attempt to push Paul Ryan’s voucher system that would systematically reduce benefits and shift rising health care costs to individuals, despite the fact this flawed [...]

When Mr. Ryan”s plan to end Medicare limits the future elderly to a voucher that, according to the CBO, falls thousands of dollars short of the premiums needed to purchase Medicare-equivalent coverage from private insurers, and then tells them they have to purchase private insurance — and purchase only from private insurers without the choice of traditional and cheaper Medicare — then according to Santorum, that’s giving Americans the kind of freedom that thousands of Allied soldiers died to protect.

To see why Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher mandate is so offensive, such bad public policy and so unpopular, we need to recognize there are good and necessary mandates, lousy mandates, and truly awful mandates. He’s picked the worst.

In reality, Ryan’s plan doesn’t actually protect current seniors Medicare. With no new people joining traditional Medicare, its pool would steadily shrink, making doctors less willing to accept it.

A pig is a pig, even if it has Mitt Romney’s lipstick on it. For the affected groups, the basic outline of RomneyCare is the same as the basic outline of ObamaCare is the same as the basic outline of StupidRyanCare. Let’s review the features. . . .