Since Willard selected Lyin’ Ryan to be his back door boss (like Cheney was GW’s), Medicare has become a touchy subject to them for obvious reasons. True to Republican strategy they are attacking Obama, where he is strong, and they are weak. As usual, the truth won’t help them, so they are doing what Republicans do best. The latest lie is that Obama is the one who gutted Medicare.
On NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus reiterated the false claim that the Affordable Care Act guts Medicare, claiming that President Obama’s attempt to increase the program’s solvency amounts to “stealing” from America’s seniors.
“If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it’s Barack Obama,” Priebus insisted…
…But Obama’s health care law extends the solvency of Medicare, and has already saved seniors $4 billion on prescription drugs. The savings reduce the growth rate of reimbursement rates and don’t affect beneficiaries.
Ryan’s plan, conversely, preserves all of the savings included in the reform law, uses them for deficit reduction and transforms the existing Medicare benefit guarantee into a premium support program that would provide seniors with depreciating vouchers to buy insurance from private plans… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Here’s video:
Priebus is not the only one. Willard has parroted the lie, as have four different Republican talking heads I heard on MSNBC this morning.
The key here is that Obama’s Medicare savings are on the back end. They do not reduce the benefits or increase the cost for present or future beneficiaries. One of the chief ways in which he achieved the savings was to equalize the payments for Medicare Advantage over time. Medicare Advantage plans are private insurance plans that provide Medicare services. Up until now, the federal government has reimbursed the insurance companies at a 15% higher rate than normal. That’s not fair. I have a Medicare Advantage Plan with Providence and love it. I do not mind that I’m paying a little more because of the equalization. I recognize that other Medicare recipients should not have to subsidize the health care benefits I have earned. Medicare Advantage plans also provide Medicare recipients the choices Republicans dishonestly claim that Medicare lacks.
The Romney/Ryan plan provides a depreciating coupon (voucher). Because it is indexed to increase at a rate way below health care costs, it will buy less coverage every year. Seniors who cannot buy enough to meet their medical needs would be on their own, because Romney and Ryan would have deprived them of the guaranteed care Medicare now provides. That’s the RepubliCare Death Benefit.
12 Responses to “Did Obama Really Gut Medicare?”
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I want to know WHEN those in the media…written or broadcast…..are going to call out these jerks when they LIE like they do!!!!!!! NOBODY is saying a word…and the brain dead, easily led, don't-investigate-or-research-anything people swallow it hook, line and sinker. Then THEY start repeating…….THEN IT IS GOD'S TRUE.
Makes me sick.
That's the $64,000 question, isn't it?
Your link does not work.
Obamacare takes money away from insurance companies, not Seniors.
Bingo!
It seems to me that all Rmoney, Ryan, Priebus and the rest if the Republican/Teabaggers are doing is trying to distract people from their own inadequacies and designs on healthcare by telling lies about Mr Obama. A common tactic it seems as Rmoney has been using the same tactic to avoid having to produce his tax returns. Indeed it seems that whenever Rmoney is called to account for any Republican/Teabagger policies, he responds by distraction, trying to turn the tables back onto the Democrats.
When reading the entire article in Think Progress, I noted a Health Editor tweet "Ryan Family Financially Benefits From The Health Insurance Industry" which made me think that Ryan perhaps had big ties to insurance. With a quick look I didn't see it however that doesn't mean it isn't there. What I did see was a very humble beginning, even to working at a McDonald's grill and driving the Oscar Mayer weinermobile. He lost a father, grandfather and greatgrandfather from heart attacks in their late 50's and he helped care for a grandmother with Alzheimer's. With all this, it would seem that Ryan should have an appreciation for affordable healthcare. But instead, as one pundit put it, and I am sorry I can't remember where I read it, he wants to wheel his grandmother off a cliff in her wheelchair. Ryan has benefited from the very social benefits that he wants to send into oblivion, not unlike his heroine, Ayn Rand who received SS under her husband's last name, O'Connor.
Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, has written that "If you know about Paul Ryan at all, you probably know him as a deficit hawk. But Ryan has voted to increase deficits and expand government spending too many times for that to be his north star. Rather, the common thread throughout his career is his desire to remake the basic architecture of the federal government."
It's a standard Republican tactic. Kerry was a war hero. GW was a draft-dodging ChickenHawk. Republicans attacked Kerry's strength with Swiftboat lies.
That's true, but he didn't really work his way up from humble roots. He was born a millionaire.
If they didn't tell lies, they would have nothing to say at all.
Of course. Their mouths are open and they are neither putting in food or snoring.
You can all ways tell when the republian/tea party are trying to hide the truth. They blame Obama. As with all that "Obama is gutting medicare you would think their noses would have grown another inch yesterday. But when asked what are your plans the American people get laughed at and carried out. Ryan at the fair was asked a question and he said right now we are just going to enjoy the fair and talk about issues another day. lol lol (off the top of head I can not remember what that question was).
Exactly. They always blame opponants for their own shortcomings.
Repeat over and over doesn't make it true…
True, Richard!