Morally Corrupt Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan Spread $500 Billion Medicare Lie
Just one day after President Obama declared that the Republican budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would “ultimately end Medicare as we know it,” his likely Republican opponent appeared at the Newspaper Association of America and threw the accusation right back at him. Obama, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said, “has taken a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it” and “is the only President to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare”:
ROMNEY: I’d be willing to consider the President’s plan, but he doesn’t have one. That’s right: In over three years, he has failed to enact or even propose a serious plan to solve our entitlement crisis.
Instead, he has taken a series of steps that end Medicare as we know it. He is the only President to ever cut $500 billion from Medicare. And, as a result, more than half of doctors say they will cut back on treating seniors. He is destroying the Medicare Advantage program, eliminating the coverage that millions of seniors depend on and reducing choice by two-thirds.
To control Medicare cost, he has created an unelected, unaccountable panel with the power to prevent Medicare from providing certain treatments. The result will be fewer treatments and services available to patients in need, and nowhere else to turn.
Romney rarely lets the facts get in the way of his rhetoric, but these oft-repeated accusations ring particularly hallow — and are hardly rare. The savings achieved in Medicare through the Affordable Care Act will help stabilize Medicare by eliminating overpayments to private insurers and slowly phasing in payment adjustments that encourage greater efficiency. As a result, the law extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by eight years and allows seniors to retain all of their guaranteed Medicare benefits. Medicare beneficiaries are already paying less for prescription drug coverage and receiving preventive care as a result of the law, while enrollment in Medicare Advantage has increased and premiums have fallen. The law, in other words, does exactly the opposite of Romney’s claim: it expands Medicare “as we know it.”
That doesn’t mean that it solves all of our health care cost problems. It doesn’t and Obama has proposed accelerating some of the law’s cost-control mechanisms to further lower the growth of spending. But Romney has labeled such efforts “rationing” and is offering an alternative “premium support” scheme that transforms senior’s guaranteed Medicare benefit into a voucher and significantly reduces the government’s contribution to the program. As a result, seniors will likely pay more for their health care, while the market clout and purchasing power of traditional Medicare — which has led on delivery reform and efficiencies — will shrink. So if the question is, which candidate ends Medicare for seniors, it’s hard to see how Romney’s plan to push future retirees into private insurance doesn’t fit the bill.
Are Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan men or gutter scum. Its hard to tell by how they display their values. Romney has recently said he is running on his Medicare plan and not Ryan's. Guess what, an analysis of the Romney plan shows that he would give seniors the shaft as well, Romney Budget Proposals Would Require Massive Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Other Programs
Will Media Find Their Way to Discover Just How Radical Paul Ryan Is?
By contrast, Representative Ryan has an extreme right-wing agenda that predates both the Great Society and the New Deal. He has put forward plans that would cut and privatize both Social Security and Medicare. He has also called for essentially zeroing out most categories of federal spending.
While Ryan supports current levels of military spending, the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of his budget shows that there will be essentially nothing left for anything else by 2040. The CBO analysis of the Ryan budget (prepared under his direction) shows that spending on all items other than health care and Social Security would fall to 4.75 percent of GDP by 2040 and to 3.75 percent of GDP by 2050.
The military budget currently is more than 4.0 percent of GDP. In the post-World War II era it has never been less than 3.0 percent. This means that Ryan's budget would leave nothing for running the State Department, the Park Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the National Institutes of Health and the other areas that comprise the federal government as it now exists.
The government plays a major role in financing drug and medical research. Ryan, true to his dog eat dog roots would rather people die than benefit from the positive role government can play is an advanced economy.
