Bush Scores on Medicare

Former Florida governor and hopeful presidential candidate Jeb Bush stepped outside the political comfort zone and endorsed dramatic reforms to Medicare:

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said Wednesday that we ought to phase out Medicare, the federal program that provides health insurance to Americans once they're 65.
"We need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits," Bush said. "But we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something, because they're not going to have anything."
Bush praised Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for proposing to change Medicare to a system that gives seniors medical vouchers instead of paying their bills directly.

(Arthur Delaney & Jeffrey Young, “Jeb Bush says we should phase out Medicare,” HuffingtonPost, July 23, 2015)

That kind of straight talk deserves praise, especially as so many have allowed a few years of Medicare Trustees’ reports, which show a trivial improvement in the program’s finances, to give them an excuse to dodge the need for reform.