Rep. Ryan Quiet on His Own Medicare Plan

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/5446901600/">Gage Skidmore</a>/Flickr

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Hit the Republicans with a club, and they at least get the message.

The Republican National Committee this afternoon sent out a fundraising email featuring Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House budget committee. He is the infamous author of the Ryan budget adopted by the House GOP that would end Medicare as a guaranteed benefit. Since the House Republicans passed his budget in April, the Democrats have been bashing GOPers for trying to destroy Medicare-as-we-know-it, and, according to the polls, the Dems seem to have have public sentiment on their side in this fight. So Ryan’s proposal to cut Medicare and Medicaid are hardly good selling points for the party.

The Republican money-grubbers obviously know that. In this fundraising email, which was signed by Ryan, guess which words do not appear even once: “Medicare,” “Medicaid,” and “health care.”

In the note, Ryan excoriates Washington for spending and borrowing and claims, “our most cherished freedoms and values are under attack like never before by our own government.” He boasts that the Republican Party “has a plan to put America back on the path to prosperity.” But he’s a bit short on the details, saying nothing about his proposal to turn Medicare into essentially a privatized system controlled by insurance companies.

“America is not down and out,” Ryan writes. “We have a few problems, but we can fix them with the right solutions.” He’s just not going to remind potential donors of the specifics of these solutions.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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