Ryan to Plunder Seniors life savings Shopping in Medicare "Marketplace."

Even after debating the ins and outs of the Affordable Care Act for six years, reporters have done little to bone up on the subject. They still aren't asking the right questions of our politically motivated free market reformers.

Turning Medicare into a Shopping Experience? There's an odd dynamic here; while Rep. Paul Ryan has called the health care marketplace a disaster, he wants to turn Medicare into a health care marketplace...with subsidies.

Even worse, Ryan actually thinks seniors should be shoppers, ignoring cognitive aging, age-related financial vulnerability, dementia and Alzheimer disease.

I truly believe Ryan isn't just fully aware of the problem, but is purposely targeting seniors hard earned money and possessions for insurer plundering in the marketplace.

ALERT: What about Cognitive Aging and Age-Associated Financial Vulnerability, or AAFV?

Cognitive Aging: Part of the aging process is cognitive aging as it relates to driving safety and financial decision-making, (which the latter) would be problematic shopping for health care. As a person ages there is a gradual, but marked change in these cognitive functions, which is referred to as "cognitive aging." Cognitive aging is not a disease or a level of impairment—it is a lifelong process that affects everyone.

But the bigger problem comes with Age-Associated Financial Vulnerability (AAFV), something reporters should be asking guys like Paul Ryan about, especially when they blissfully talk about seniors shopping for insurance every year.

Age-Associated Financial Vulnerability: Managing money can be difficult at any age. For older adults, changes in physical condition and life circumstances can lead to changes for the worse in financial behavior, putting their well-being in danger. It's a pattern of financial behavior that places an older adult at substantial risk for a considerable loss of resources such that dramatic changes in quality of life would result ... a condition different from dementia, which already is recognized as putting older adults at risk of causing themselves financial harm.

1. Other potential contributing factors may include cognitive changes, such as a lessened ability to discern a person's trustworthiness, and psychosocial problems, including loneliness or depression.

2. In addition, the finance industry has identified older adults as an untapped market, which can lead to them being overwhelmed by the "dizzying array of financial products and services," according to Han and co-author Mark Lachs, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and co-chief of geriatrics and gerontology at Weill Medical College in New York.

"In my discussions with Dr. Lachs about our experiences with the heart-breaking effects of financial vulnerability among our older patients, we decided that naming the problem may be a useful first step to addressing the issue."- Duke Han, PhD, co-author of the study.