Paul Ryan uses Orwellian Pitch to sell Dickensian Future.

My hats off to Rock Netroots for giving us an insightful look at the nearly invisible recent town hall meetings by Rep. Paul Ryan, along with Ryan’s twisted idea of “shopping for health care.”

While many focus on Ryan’s Orwellian double speak, especially when it comes to health care, its Ryan’s exploration of the “police state” that should scare the daylights out of even the staunchest conservative.  Ryan’s last tour ended up sending concerned senior citizens to jail for speaking up at their only chance to address their representative. Ryan sent his warning shot to dissenters then, that their outbursts would not be tolerated. This time, the police sent the warning shot for him:

I've been to plenty of Paul Ryan's so-called "listening sessions" in hometown Janesville over the years … I entered the facility a few minutes late passing a couple more plainclothes police officers in the lobby. Unfortunately, I missed the very beginning of the session where, according to the Janesville Gazette, a Janesville police official took the stage and gave district constituents a verbal warning that anyone speaking out of turn or ignoring their warning would be escorted out.

That explains why I felt constituents seemed to be raising their hands sheepishly like small children do in school after they have been scolded by a paddle waving teacher. Even the GOP's south-central propaganda machine … seemed surprised that there were no angry outbursts and only "smatterings" of polite applause, both for and against … this is no way to hold a town hall meeting where constituents attend and attempt to speak their minds freely without being in fear of being arrested. 

When Ryan’s “shopping” for health care in a free market place isn’t quite what you thought it would be:

Ryan mockingly complained about the run-around he recently got from hospitals and insurance providers on costs and billing after one of his kids had their tonsils removed. Soon after again, in response to a question about how he intends on turning patients into consumers shopping around for a double by-pass, he brags about how his health care proposal would help that because everyone would have the same plan he now enjoys as congressman. So you wouldn't really have to shop because hospitals would be competing for your business automatically with costs and prices set by a shopper's consumer market. Like Best Buy … His responses were loaded with simple hypotheticals and overly agreeable answers loaded down with deliberately convoluted talking points that were often irreconcilable with each other. In other words, his answers were double-loaded. That's Paul Ryan in a nutshell. 

What Ryan envisions isn't a free market place at all. Real competition involves the consumer, where health providers and insurers compete for the consumers business. When they compete with each other, it's a subtle form of collusion and market manipulation. In this case however, consumer might be the wrong word, since health care isn't really a "want" that we consume, but a need that ends the pain or prevents death.

There's more! Check out the rest of the story at the link above