Campaign battle focuses on Ryan's Medicare redesign
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In comments on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Ryan’s plan was far preferable to what President Barack Obama had done and would do to Medicare.
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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus discusses the impact that Mitt Romney's pick of Paul Ryan as his running mate will have on the Republican campaign.
Going on the counter-offensive, Priebus said “If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it’s Barack Obama. He’s the one who is destroying Medicare; we are the ones that are offering solutions” to preserve Medicare benefits for people who are at or near retirement age and to make the program fiscally sustainable for future taxpayers.
He alleged that Obama “stole $700 billion out of Medicare to fund European health care. We can go down that route, or we can put solutions on the table to big problems and have a debate.”
According to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and the chief Medicare actuary, Obama’s health care overhaul will reduce future Medicare spending by between $400 billion and $600 billion in its first ten years. The Medicare provisions in the Affordable Care Act are designed to squeeze savings out of Medicare by pressing hospitals, hospices and other providers to become more efficient and by reducing spending on Medicare Advantage plans.
Ryan’s Medicare reform would gradually increase the Medicare eligibility age to 67. The phased-in increase in the eligibility age would start in 2023. Ryan’s proposal would also do away with Medicare’s open-ended payments for those born in 1958 and later. The Ryan Medicare plan would not apply to those now receiving Medicare benefits.
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Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod contrasts the presidential candidates' stances on preservation of Medicare for seniors.
And Ryan has partnered with one democrat. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, in offering proposals to restructure Medicare by offering seniors a choice of different insurance plans and forcing plans to compete with each other in an attempt to achieve greater efficiency.
Priebus argued that, “If we go down the road this president wants to go down… Medicare will be changed forever: it will be bankrupt by 2024. Medicare is going broke. Every person in America watching this now knows that that’s true.”
Asked whether Romney embraces Ryan’s Medicare redesign plan, Priebus said the GOP presidential contender “appreciates and admires” what Ryan has proposed, but “Mitt Romney has his own plans.”
David Axelrod, the Obama campaign political strategist, told NBC’s David Gregory on Meet the Press that Romney’s selection of Ryan as his running mate “clarifies the choice” for voters to Obama’s benefit because Ryan is so clearly defined by his calls for reducing future spending on Medicare, Medicaid and other benefits.
Asked about Newt Gingrich’s comment when he was running for the GOP presidential nomination last year that Ryan’s Medicare design was “right-wing social engineering,” Axelrod said “I believe what Newt Gingrich said on your program. I believe it’s right-wing social engineering. I don’t believe they (Ryan and Romney) believe in that (Medicare) program”
He charged that the Romney campaign is “trying to distance themselves” from Ryan’s Medicare proposal.
He also contended that Ryan “rubber-stamped every aspect of the (George W.) Bush economic policy” from 2001 to 2008, including tax cuts, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a huge expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs, an expansion whose cost wasn’t offset by any increase in tax revenues.
Jason Reed / Reuters
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduces congressman Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate during a campaign event at the retired battleship USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia, August 11.
But Priebus contended that Ryan’s boldness in taking on Medicare redesign and his frankness in discussing America’s fiscal challenges aren’t liabilities with voters, but advantages. “What America is starving for is not only people of their word to run for office but they’re hungering for people to govern like they campaigned.”
What Romney’s choice of Ryan proves, Priebus said, “is that Mitt Romney is willing to govern like he’s campaigned. It’s not enough to win, but we have to fix the problems that are facing this country.
Romney and Ryan are spending Sunday campaigning in Mooresville, and High Point, North Carolina and in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Then Romney will had to Florida for campaigning on Monday while Ryan will split off and go to Iowa for a stop at the state fair in Des Moines. Romney campaign strategists say that Wisconsin and the other Great Lake states are now much more in play with Ryan on the ticket.
President George W. Bush nearly won Wisconsin in 2004 – losing to John Kerry by only 11,000 votes out of nearly 3 million total votes cast -- but Obama won it in 2008 with 56 percent of the vote.
In an interview on Meet the Press Sunday, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin told Gregory that Ryan “has tremendous appeal to swing voters and independent voters in states like Wisconsin that are battleground states because he’s smart and he’s bold, but he listens and he relates well to voters all across the political spectrum. I think this (choice of Ryan) is a game changer and I think it shows just how courageous Mitt Romney is not just with this choice, but how courageous he’s willing to be to take on our fiscal and economic crises here in America….”
NBC's Garrett Haake contributed to this report.
Comment collapsed by the community
Its not that it focuses on his voucher program for medicare as much as it focuses on his (and Willards) top down ideology.
He wants to give tax cuts to the richest (for the THIRD time) while shifting the burden to the working class and poor. His idea on Medicare exemplifies this shift towards screwing those that worked their whole life.
Really, its the only republican plan so far in this Presidential election so people will understandably jump all over it and hang it on "Elect me to see my Plan" Rmoney...
- 243 votes
“Mitt Romney has his own plans.” Said Party Boss Reinhold Reince Priebus so once again we are left with... I can't tell you what we will do but... Trust Us.
- 190 votes
Obama has no plans for Medicare except let it go bankrupt before long. Denial of the problem is not a plan as far as I am concerned.
- 74 votes
You take the for-profit aspect out of any type of healthcare and like magic all the financial problems go away.
Healthcare should have never ever been a for-profit industry.
.
- 266 votes
Romney's only plan is to cut and tax. That is not a solution just more of a problem. Yeah, it looks good in math for Romney but bad in application for us all.
- 145 votes
Ryan has a plan and a budget which is more than Obama has. Doing nothing medicare will go broke. Ryan wants to give people under 55 a choice to participate in medicare as is or accept a voucher for private insurance. 55+ will have no change in medicare benefits. Ryan's plan puts the savings back into medicare, Obama is taking 500 BILLION out of medicare to fund Obamacare. Who exactly is gutting medicare? I encourage Americans to research this before November.
- 73 votes
UNited States, Profit motive does serve a purpose by at least giving an incentive to cut waste. Government has no incentive and a very poor track record.
- 42 votes
The liberals will continue with the same tired 'ol mantra...Republicans = tax cuts for the 1%ers. Republicans want dirty air and polluted water. Republicans kill the elderly. Republicans starve our children...
Really, libbies?? Really?....is that all you have? If so, it'll be a conservative landslide come this November.
- 52 votes
Ryan has proposed budgets, Harry and Co, with Obama's blessing won't even discuss it having produced NO Budget of thier own in all the time Obama has been in office. When Obama finally proposed one it was so outrageous and ruinous that even Harry and Co. would not pass it.
Now Obama has the unmitigated gall to call Ryan's plan to revamp Medicare a way for Ryan to say we can't afford to give our seniors the health care we promised them. Have you ever heard such a flagrang pot calling the kettle black statement in your life?? Obamataxcare just by being passed caused doubling of medication costs for a lot of seniors, now it is set to remove another $500 million from Medicare funds, the coverage and payment to doctors and hospitals is being reduced and all this done by Obama because as he has said many many times "we have to reduce these entitlements". OF course at the same time he has increased food stamps and welfare to unheard of proportions and provides health care the the hundreds of thousands of illegals he has stopped from being deported and wants to give work permits to while AMericans can't get jobs and more and more have to go to the government for help. WHAT a giantic hypocrit.
Ryan's plan is a proposal to keep the seniors of today on Medicare and those close to Medicare covered as promised and to devise a plan where seniors in the future will have some kind of assistance with medical coverage and care. HE at least tries to do something logical and budget concious rather than be a BS, give money we don't have politician like Obama and most in Washington. The Dems have stopped all Ryan's effort to get things going in the right direction. THis is a great team to save our economy, get jobs back and get rid of Obamataxcare. Heck, these two might even consider enforcing our laws as they should be and not catering to the people who attacked us and will do it again.
- 51 votes
It's rather interesting how Obama is being accused of not having a plan and doing nothing and is also being accused of cutting Medicare expenses at the same time - often in the same sentence.
The simple fact is that Obamcare focuses on efficiency of care. There is no guarantee that, Chicken Littles notwithstanding, Medicare would go bankrupt if we were able to improve the way we provide care. That is the focus of Obamacare's cuts.
The problem, of course, with increasing efficiency is that each Medicare patient becomes less of a cash cow for the industry. THAT is why Paul Ryan's plan does nothing to address efficiency per se. He isn't interested in a more health American public, he just wants to make sure taxpayer money keeps getting funneled away at the same rate.
The American healthcare consumer is woefully underinformed about the value of service he or she receives. When you are at a doctor's office, you don't get a menu of choices of the tests that you can choose and how much each costs. Giving seniors more choice means that they will be even more vulnerable to a doctor who just bought a fancy new machine and wants to make money off it. This is Paul Ryan's plan. Give them 6,000$, if they are lucky and they are healthy, great. If not, well, too bad.
- 126 votes
Other than cutting it by $500 billion over the next ten years, what is the Obama Plan for the sustainability of Medicare? Or Social Security? Or Medicaid?
I've seen nothing on any of these. Only criticism of those who are trying to save these programs. None are sustainable in their present form, so why is ending them "..as we know them" so radical. If nothing is done, they will collapse of their own weight - and not too long from now.
What is the Obama Plan?
- 34 votes
dal
"looks good in math but bad for us"? Who be us??? Math is what is supposed to run a budget, not give aways we can't afford to buy votes. If Obama had any idea how math works we would not be in the mess we are in.
R & R for America after a looooooong devistating reign of insanity.
By the way there is no freaking 1%. Taxes are paid by the 47% and the rest are suckers off those 47%. And if you libs had your way, you'd tax the top tax payers to leaving our country. Who you gonna feed off of then?
- 27 votes
Obamacare does nothing to control healthcare costs....
- 30 votes
First of all, $500 billion is not being taken out of Medicare, all Obama wants to do is cut middle man(private insurance companies out of picture). Because the overcharge government too much for that coverage when government can do it in first place. If you actually get facts right may be you get informed. Ryan Plan is disaster. Voucher plan will increase seniors health plan by $6000 to $8000 a year, How do you expect the seniors on fixed income afford this?
- 139 votes
I for one state that Willard has given up any hope for getting elected by his choice for a running mate. Actually the catch phrase "running mate" is exactly what Willard, et al, are doing. Running for cover with this choice. I would like to add that as a Miami U alumni I am ashamed to be affiliated with Ryan even though he does not reflect the values of Miami, in my humble opinion and experience, but those of the priveledged students he reflects that attend Miami U.
- 70 votes
Have you looked at Ryan's plan for starter? Those are hypothetical points that assume "what if". The main objective is to lower tax for the rich, increase tax for the middle class.
Really? How is that working for 12 years? And you say GOP is not about tax cut for the rich and oil corporations. Paint me the picture, but what they said betray what you are trying to say.
- 94 votes
UNited States, Profit motive does serve a purpose by at least giving an incentive to cut waste. Government has no incentive and a very poor track record.
Government has a very good record of managing healthcare. Every single advanced country in the world has a working healthcare system that involves government.
The reason OUR government is inefficient is because we outsource our government functions back out to private companies. That basically means that the profit motive serves a purpose to try to soak the taxpayer for every single possible dollar.
The cutting of waste doesn't benefit the customer - i.e. the taxpayer. It just enriches the CEO and the board of the private company.
Mitt Romney was marveling over how Israel manages to only pay 8% of its economy towards healthcare whereas we pay 18%. That's because Israel has one of the most Socialistic healthcare systems in the world.
Israelis aren't any less healthy than Americans - but they do pay less for their healthcare. A LOT less.
In general, private industry isn't that good at coming up with great ideas. Most of the biggest advances in society have come from government. Industry is good at taking those ideas to the general public, but doesn't really have the vision or time horizon to see way out into the future. That is the REAL problem with the profit motive. Instant gratification doesn't work very well with the need for investing in research.
- 116 votes
hahaha the republican plan for the elderly.roll their beds into the forest and let them die.hahaha.think how much money the rich will save.vote republican
- 52 votes
Just remember the people making these plans will never have to depend on Medicaid. They get, for life, a private government plan that the average working person could never afford and remember it's free to them. No co-pays and it's paid for by the tax payers.
- 120 votes
Were damned if we do, and damned if we don't....The hell with the whole bunch i'm going moose hunting!....
- 18 votes
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