Appearing with his mother before an audience at The Villages retirement community in Florida, Rep. Paul Ryan pushed back against the Obama campaign’s criticisms of his Medicare reform proposals by turning the tables and skewering the president for taking money from Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act.
Medicare should not be used as a piggy bank for Obamacare. Medicare should be the promise that is made to our current seniors period, end of story.
Time and again, the congressman hammered home the fact that his vision for Medicare reform was to save the program, not destroy it as the Obama campaign has been charging. He also insisted that it was the president who was threatening the integrity of Medicare by using Medicare money to fund ObamaCare.
The Washington Post reports:
Ryan took the stage in The Villages with his mother Betty Ryan Douglas, 78, while Romney scheduled a series of fundraisers in Massachusetts. The Wisconsin congressman said he saw Medicare’s benefits firsthand as a child when his grandmother, with Alzheimer’s, moved in with his family. “My mom and I were her two primary caregivers,” Ryan said before shifting to his mother and the promise of Medicare for her.
“She planned her retirement around this promise,” Ryan said. “That’s a promise we have to keep.”
“It’s not just a program,” he added. “It’s what my mom relies on.”
He accused Obama of undermining Medicare by cutting billions from the program to devote to expanded coverage under his health care law, and asserted: “We want this debate. We need this debate. And we are going to win this debate.
Older Americans have often resisted changes in Medicare, the federal health care insurance program for people 65 and older, and for the disabled.
The Romney-Ryan ticket is betting that voters’ worries about federal deficits and the Democrats’ health care overhaul have opened the door for a robust debate on the solvency of Medicare, one of the government’s most popular and costliest programs.
Pointing to his mother standing next to him, Ryan offered some of the harshest criticism yet for Obama’s Medicare policies and how ObamaCare will affect current seniors.
She planned her retirement around this promise that the government made her because she paid her payroll taxes into this program which she had this promise with. That’s a promise we have to keep. Here is what the President won’t tell you about his Medicare plan, about Obamacare. The President raids $716 billion from the Medicare program to pay for the Obamacare program. What’s more, in addition to that, he puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors. You want to know what Medicare is saying about this? From Medicare officials themselves: one out of six of our hospitals and our nursing homes will go out of business as a result of this. Four million seniors are projected to lose their Medicare advantage plans that they enjoy and they chose today under this Obamacare plan. What’s worse is the President’s campaign calls this an achievement. Do you think raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare is achievement? Do you think that empowering a board of bureaucrats to cut Medicare [is] an achievement? Neither do I.
This reminds me of the phrase, “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
That is exactly what it is. You are right.
http://uselections2012blog.blogspot.ca/
Actually it’s robbing Peter at 25 to pay Peter at 65 but point taken.
Converting Medicare to a voucher system will have the added benefit of helping to drive down premium costs of private health insurance (PHI). It is well documented that low reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid result in cost shifting by hospitals and providers that drive up premiums for the privately insured.
Also, some physicians (with more to come given the looming physician shortage) won’t accept Medicare patients or limit the number they will take. A voucher system would allow people to buy up to a product that pays the doctor more competitive rates. Right now, Medicare is the equivalent of the NHS- you’re either in or you’re out- and few people can afford to go out.
Ohhhh, Obama is gonna get roughed up on this argument. It’s good for Prez Barack Hussein that nobody will know about it except for maybe a couple million Fox RINO viewers.
I say this cuz the Ivy League geniuses in the White House couldn’t even figure out how to forge the birth certificate offered as proof that Hussein was born here. But the same media coverage principle applied there as it soon will with ObamaCare; it was accorded minimum required coverage combined with a maximum amount of spin and even some bald-faced lying.
Anybody see Juan Williams on Fox RINO deny that $716 billion was cut from Medicare? His spin was based on the lie that the missing money would be made up in lower billing rates. He didn’t know about the rates, Krauthammer had to point it out on his behalf.
juan willams said what he did?
because he’s a racist and obama is (clear your throat) black.
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I honestly don’t know how they can cut Medicare any more than it is. It’s crappy insurance, both for the patient and the provider. And don’t believe this song and dance about squeezing out waste, either- after decades of going after fraud and abuse, there’s not that much out there (though the occasional headline might tempt one to believe differently).
As far as I can see, the main waste with Medicare is the bureaucracy that runs it. I think it’s rather rich that Obamacare contains penalties for insurance companies that don’t spend more than 80% of their premiums on medical care. I doubt very much that 80% of the Medicare tax is spent on care. The amount of waste in administration of the program has got to be staggering.
Tort reform and regulation reform would reduce costs significantly.
I’ve worked some on systems in the health billing area. The thing that strikes me is that the HCFA 1500, the form Perot’s guys at IBM invented in the mid-1960s, is still the basis for nearly all clinical bulling today. In other words, healthcare operates today on a steam-driven rickety antiquated highly inefficient software architecture from the days of LBJ (that esteemed and history-making socialist). Modernizing it would save at least the $716 billion we’re talking about here.
Of course, we didn’t hear about that in the “healthcare reform debate” the socialists held among themselves a couple of years ago. A disfigured, ignorant, one-sided stupid debate over a bill with “Affordable” in its name that has only raised the already shameless level of inefficiency.
Very true. Unfortunately, both of those things threaten to derail someone else’s gravy train, and those people seem to have more pull with the politicians.
“The amount of waste in administration of the program has got to be staggering.”
It’s not just the administration. The fraud and waste permeate every level. Even if you ignore the bona-fide fraud around something as simple as a power chair, does anyone actually believe that one of those things would cost $10,000 or more if they weren’t covered (or covered under a more stringent standard). You couldn’t legitimately pile on a $10,000 price tag even if these things were built by the UAW.
Obama campaign Senior Adviser David Axelrod contradicts Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter on President Obama cutting nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars from Medicare.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK49WTpjYfM&feature=player_embedded
Obama’s liars and enablers in the media claim that Obama, through expert medical management of medicare, will be able to CUT spending to hospitals, doctors, and other medicare service providers thus generating these so called savings of $716 billion. (This assumptionn is a pure crock) They claim that NO benefits will be cut from medicare recipients. All this wonderfual stuff at a time when baby boomers are retiring like crazy, doctors are fleeing the profession, hospitals are closing, and 30 million new insureds show up to demand Obama care. NOW someone tell me that this is not just risky but insanity. The way they get through this is through this 15 elitists liberal death panel types manned by Berwick and Sustein types who will cut older people off at the knees and deny them services. Ryan and Romney (old R&R) are taking it to these bs artists and good. This is a winning argument against a bunch of criminal scum bags. Conservatives are the good guys in this fight so lets get behind these guys and drive this home. This election is a fight for our country and a return to our roots as independent freedome loving Americans. Don’t tread on us anymore!!
What bothers me about this whole Medicare discussion is the falsity of the both sides. Does the Ryan budget do away with Medicare? Yes, of course it does. It replaces the Medicare pram with vouchers for for participants to purchase coverage in the the (non-existent at present) open market. Does the Obama administration want to continue the program in perpetuity without major structural reforms? Yes. My personal feeling is the let the old and poor – and their families – fend for themselves. If people cannot afford medical care, they can either shop around for a cheaper option or they can spend whatever money they have on care. After that, maybe charity can take over but if not, too bad, so sad. Better to decrease the surplus population. This isn’t socialism, this is the free market, pay or not, you live with your choices.
Brutus, well named. “Decrease the surplus population.” Surely you are a young man. More growing to do. It is, in fact the countries such as North Korea, China and others who have their ‘elites’ who talk of such ‘control’, and interestingly it is also POTUS with his IPAB…everyone is just a statistic. Perhaps it is YOU, who would be deemed ‘expendable’ in your statistical world, what then my friend? Are YOU expendable? If one of YOUR loved ones (if someone like you has any) expendable? I will pray for your growing more accountable, the world is a more complicated place my friend. Read Corinthians 13, if your heart is open to it, it may help you. Semper Fi.
For a good laugh you should watch Robert Gibbs try and explain to Chris Wallace on FNS how the regime expects to get 700 billion in savings from “providers” just “doing a better job.”
You just have to hear it to actually believe they are trying this one out.
Axelrod must have been really reaching when he turfed that one out of his computer and then fired it over to the DNC for redistribution to all DBM channels..
To begin with doctors=providers hate anything to do with medicare or medicaid and the rush is on to stop taking either one all together. That is for the doctors who will not retire or go to Costa Rica when and if ozero is reelected and obamacare becomes a reality.
So, what if Paul Ryan was delving into the federal budget when he was still in high school? I didn’t peek at a federal budget until I was out of college. Yet there is no way I would have cast the votes in Congress that Ryan has through the years. Ryan voted for TARP, the auto bailouts, No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Bush stimulus, the Patriot Act, and military adventurism abroad. No policymaker is perfect, but no one with a libertarian bone in their body could have supported these policies.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/paul-ryan-biggovernment-conservative
Ryan is the face of the ESTABLISHMENT, and should be considered as such! Wake up folks, and put down your pom poms!
Republicans Hope, but Don’t Change: by Peter Schiff
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/peterschiff/2012/08/19/republicans_hope_but_dont_change/page/full/
Published on Aug 15, 2012 by Ben Swann Reality Check takes a look at Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan’s spending record during his seven terms in office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKJaVJpJ-FI&feature=plcp