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So I figured I’d wait until today to get the details of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, but this is pretty much all that his proposal says about it:

Starting in 2022, new Medicare bene?ciaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they will be given the ability to choose a plan that works best for them….The Medicare premium-support payment would be adjusted so that wealthier bene?ciaries would receive a lower subsidy, the sick would receive a higher payment if their conditions worsened, and lower-income seniors would receive additional assistance to cover out-of-pocket costs.

….Health plans that choose to participate in the Medicare exchange must agree to offer insurance to all Medicare bene?ciaries, to avoid cherry-picking and ensure that Medicare’s sickest and highest-cost bene?ciaries receive coverage….While there would be no disruptions in the current Medicare fee-for-service program for those currently enrolled or becoming eligible in the next ten years, all seniors would have the choice to opt into the new Medicare program once it begins in 2022.

Is that it? Am I missing something? How is anybody supposed to analyze how this would actually work with no more detail than this?

For now, I’m going to assume that I’m missing something. There must be a more detailed document around somewhere that I haven’t found yet. There has to be, right?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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