In case you have not yet seen it, this is the link to the commercial showing granny being pushed over a cliff by a person resembling Paul Ryan put out by the Agenda Project.  The implication is supposed to be that the Ryan budget will kill old people by changing Medicare.  That is not true, but the ad wants you to believe that it is true.  There are numerous articles on the subject of what the Ryan plan is and what the Ryan plan isn’t on this website.  You can find them easily using the search engine.  However, the truth about who is actually taking aim at granny is slowly coming out.

Yesterday, CNS News posted an article about some Congressional hearings that were going on.  On Friday, Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about the Obama administration’s plans for reviewing and reducing federal regulations.

During that testimony, Mr. Sunstein was asked about a paper he wrote when he was a professor at the University of Chicago titled “Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay.”

According to the article, Mr. Sunstein wrote:

“”Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the ‘value of a statistical life year’ (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children,” the 2003 paper said.

“”I urge that the government should indeed focus on statistical life-years rather than statistical lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.””

Mr. Sunstein said that the paper was an acedemic exercise and not an indication of government policy.  However, Rep. Michael G. Burgess (R-Texas) pointed out that Mr. Sunstein would have input into the establishment of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, part of the health care overhaul law targeting cost reductions for Medicare.  This is not a comforting thought.

The article at CNS News further reports:

“The 2003 Sunstein report, “Lives, Life-Years, and Willingness to Pay,” said, “In protecting safety, health, and the environment, government has increasingly relied on cost-benefit analysis. In undertaking cost-benefit analysis, the government has monetized risks of death through the idea of ‘value of a statistical life’ (VSL), currently assessed at about $6.1 million.”

“”Many analysts, however, have suggested that the government should rely instead on the ‘value of a statistical life year (VSLY), in a way that would likely result in significantly lower benefits calculations for elderly people, and significantly higher benefits calculations for children. I urge that the government should indeed focus on statistical life-years rather than statistical live,” Sunstein’s 2003 paper continued.

“”A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people. Nor does a focus on life-years run afoul of ethical limits on cost-benefit analysis. It is relevant in this connection that every old person was once young, and that if all goes well, young people will eventually be old,” Sunstein added.”

“…Under the life-years approach, older people are treated worse for only one reason: They are older. This is not an injustice.”

Wow.  The paper Mr. Sunstein wrote is only eight years old.  I really do not want that kind of philosophy making medical decisions about our elderly population.  It is not Paul Ryan who is pushing granny off the cliff.