“Running Out The Clock On Medicare”: Romney’s Constant “Delaying Counter-Attacks” That He Knows Won’t Survive Serious Scrutiny
Given what we know about the cynicism of the Romney campaign, it’s entirely possible its strategy for dealing with attacks on the Ryan Budget’s effect on Medicare will be to raise constant counter-attacks that don’t survive a moment’s serious scrutiny, but succeed each other quickly until Election Day arrives and the clock runs out.
The Big Bertha rolled out about the time Paul Ryan was selected as Mitt’s running-mate, based on one of the Big Lies of the 2010 campaign, was that Obama and congressional Democrats had “raided” $716 billion in Medicare funds to pay for its socialist efforts to give undeserving poor and sick people health insurance. When it was pointed out that the same “cuts” (actually negotiated reductions in provider reimbursements plus a paring back of the “bonus” subsidies for private Medicare Advantage plans) were included in Paul Ryan’s own budget plan, Romney quickly said he’d restore the money if elected.
Now that promise is drawing scrutiny, as noted by the New York Times‘ Jackie Calmes:
While Republicans have raised legitimate questions about the long-term feasibility of the reimbursement cuts, analysts say, to restore them in the short term would immediately add hundreds of dollars a year to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses for beneficiaries. That would violate Mr. Romney’s vow that neither current beneficiaries nor Americans within 10 years of eligibility would be affected by his proposal to shift Medicare to a voucherlike system in which recipients are given a lump sum to buy coverage from competing insurers.
For those reasons, Henry J. Aaron, an economist and a longtime health policy analyst at the Brookings Institution and the Institute of Medicine, called Mr. Romney’s vow to repeal the savings “both puzzling and bogus at the same time.”
Marilyn Moon, vice president and director of the health program at the American Institutes for Research, calculated that restoring the $716 billion in Medicare savings would increase premiums and co-payments for beneficiaries by $342 a year on average over the next decade; in 2022, the average increase would be $577.
Worse yet, the only thing worse than the suggestion that Obama wants to “raid” Medicare to help “those people” is the idea that Romney wants to boost out-of-pocket expenses for seniors to provide a windfall to providers, a specter congressional Democrats are already raising:
“The bottom line,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, which Mr. Ryan leads, “is that Romney is proposing to take more money from seniors in higher premiums and co-pays and hand it over to private insurance companies and other providers in the Medicare system.”
I don’t know exactly how the Romney campaign will get itself out of this latest box on Medicare, but I’m sure it will come up with something confusing enough to take time to rebut, and then turn its attention back to the evil plans of the incumbent to bring back the unconditional dole and in general let those people run riot at your expense, middle-class America!
Got that? Vote Romney and there’s more money for you! Vote Obama, and it’s less money for you, more money for those people!
Add in some selectively broadcast messages about stern father Mitt Romney not wanting dirty girls to have sex and get away with it, and that’s the heart of the GOP message this year, sad to say.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 22, 2012
“Mitt’s Most Shameless Lie”: So Craven And Demagogic, You’d Think Even He Would Be Embarrassed
People who lie a lot also tend to whine a lot, particularly when their prevarications are exposed. As a presidential candidate, Mitt Romney gives the impression of never having been in a fair fight. He’s remarkably thin-skinned for somebody in public life.
Everybody expects politicians to embellish the truth, but Romney’s epic misrepresentations continue to astonish. Yet he appears flabbergasted that anybody’s allowed to talk back. Why, my dear fellow, it simply isn’t done.
Maybe this works in the executive suites and country clubs where Romney’s spent his life. But it’s a dubious strategy in an American presidential campaign. Regarding his taxes, for example, Romney could easily quell suspicion that he’s hiding something politically disqualifying. Release five years’ worth of returns (half the number President Obama’s put on the record), and move on.
Instead, he essentially demands that voters take his gentleman’s word that he’s never paid less than (a meager) 13% in taxes. However, his recent statement didn’t specify “federal income taxes,” a significant omission for somebody who made his fortune manipulating the tax code. If Romney’s arrived at the 13% figure by combining state, local, sales, excise, as well as real estate taxes on his several mansions, voters deserve to know.
Reporters should also ask, straight up, if Romney took advantage of the IRS’s 2009 one-time amnesty for money hidden in foreign bank accounts.
Yes or no?
But Romney’s taxes are trivial compared to the ugly falsehoods his campaign’s spreading about Medicare—sowing fear and division among seniors in a transparent attempt to divert attention from his and Paul Ryan’s plan to “save” the program by turning it from a guaranteed insurance benefit to a privatized voucher system.
Here’s the script of a new TV ad the Romney campaign’s running:
“You paid in to Medicare for years. Every paycheck. Now, when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare. Why? To pay for Obamacare. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”
Got that? Your benefits, paid for by your Medicare taxes, are supposedly being taken away and given to others. In case that’s too subtle, Romney himself has said “there’s only one president that I know of in history that has robbed Medicare.” He told an audience in Ohio that Obama “has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund. He’s raided that trust fund.”
And do you know what he did with it? He used it to pay for Obamacare, a risky, unproven, federal takeover of health care.”
On “Meet the Press,” Republican National Committee chairman Rience Priebus declared that “This president stole…$700 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare. If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it’s Barack Obama.”
Robbed, stole, raided, blood on his hands.
Then who IS Obamacare for, if not for you and yours?
A recent letter to my local newspaper spelled out what Romney’s too tasteful to say: “obese, lay-about, cigarette-smoking, drug-taking, welfare-sucking, emergency-room-visiting no-accounts…[who] expect the government to provide them everything for free.”
That’s right, THEM.
THEY are getting YOUR benefits.
Of course Romney’s smart enough to understand what the letter writer clearly doesn’t, which is that YOU’VE ALWAYS PAID for others’ medical care in the most wasteful, inefficient way possible. No matter who’s elected, you’ll keep paying until Congress passes a law saying hospitals can refuse sick and injured patients who can’t pay. Which would not only be immoral, but a public health menace.
That’s why Massachusetts has “Romneycare,” the only worthwhile accomplishment of Mitt’s public career, which he now wants people to forget.
Romney’s also smart enough to know that not a single dime has been robbed, stolen or otherwise removed from the Medicare trust fund. Indeed, its life has been extended. Nobody’s benefits have been altered in any way.
That’s a lie so craven and demagogic you’d think even Mitt Romney would be embarrassed.
What the Affordable Care Act does do is something conservatives have long clamored for: It cuts, not benefits, but Medicare’s future costs by roughly 10% (or $700 billion) over a ten year period by A.) Reducing corporate subsidies to insurance companies administering Medicare Advantage plans, and B.) Slowing the rate of growth in payments to hospitals.
Furthermore, the health care industry agreed to these changes during negotiations over the new law: Insurance companies because they’re gaining millions of new customers; hospitals because Obamacare virtually eliminates their huge problem of non-paying patients.
Got that? Because almost everybody will have health insurance under Obamacare, hospitals, private insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid alike can quit robbing Peter to pay Paul, effecting significant savings.
These economies are in your interest whether you’re a Medicare beneficiary or not.
That is, if you’re clear-eyed enough to see through the Republican candidate’s shameless falsehoods.
By: Gene Lyons, The National Memo, August 22, 2012
“A Transparent Pander”: On The Stump, Romney And Ryan Avoid Real Medicare Debate
Last week, in the wake of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) selection as Mitt Romney’s running mate, there was a rare moment of agreement across the political spectrum. Both liberals and conservatives concluded that Ryan’s addition to the ticket would make the campaign a choice between his radical right wing vision of privatizing Medicare and block granting Medicaid and President Obama’s desire to preserve guaranteed health coverage for vulnerable Americans. Both sides relished the fight, believing it would be to their benefit.
Now conservative pundits and activists are celebrating this supposed development. On “Fox News Sunday,” Karl Rove said, “There was going to be a battle about Medicare, no matter what. The question was: Was it going to be left to what the Democrats traditionally do — which is late-night phone calls in the final week of the campaigns, to seniors, and scary mail pieces? Or were we going to have a full-out, honest debate? And we’re having, for what passes in politics, a full-out, honest debate about it.” The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, also on the program, added, “It feels more like a movement and less like a couple hundred people in Boston, working very hard to kind of push the boulder up the hill — and more like a genuine, exciting cause.”
Alas, no such thing has occurred. Ryan has a reputation for political bravery and commitment to principle, and on the campaign trail Republicans such as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have tried to claim that merely by picking Ryan, Romney has demonstrated he also possesses those virtues. But when it comes to health care policy, the Romney/Ryan ticket is being cowardly and dishonest. When they give stump speeches they do not emphasize, or even mention, their radical, unpopular plans to leave seniors without adequate health coverage. Instead, the deliberately obscure the issue by attacking Obama for “raiding” Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act. It is nothing but a transparent pander to the GOP’s base of older voters. Unless Kristol’s “genuine cause” is to confuse and mislead the American people–always a distinct possibility–then his comment makes no sense.
All Romney/Ryan are doing is trying to hide from the American public just how badly they would shred the social safety net in order to pay for giving themselves giant tax cuts.
Ryan actually included the savings from cuts to wasteful private subsidies in the Medicare Advantage program that the ACA enacted–the same ones he now inveighs against in every speech–in his own budget. The reason he kept them in his budget, even while he votes to repeal the ACA and therefore would lose them, is because it gives him more breathing room. Take away those savings, and Ryan would have to come up with even more cuts to other popular programs.
The Obama campaign is understandably aggravated by their opponents’ cowardly refusal to stand and fight. On Saturday, after a typically evasive appearance by Ryan in Florida, Obama campaign spokesman Danny Kanner issued the following statement. “Congressman Ryan didn’t tell seniors in Florida today that if he had his way, seniors would face higher Medicare premiums and prescription drug costs, and would be forced to pay out of pocket for preventive care…. He didn’t say that they’d turn Medicare into a voucher system, ending the Medicare guarantee and raising costs by $6,400 a year for seniors. And he certainly didn’t say that they’d do it all to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. But those are the facts, and the ‘substantive’ debate he claims they want requires Romney and Ryan to be honest about them.”
Having a substantive debate about how to balance the budget is something liberals and conservatives should both want. Unfortunately, the Republicans are afraid to do so.
By: Ben Adler, The Nation, August 20, 2012
“Truth And Lies About Medicare”: Voters Can’t Believe Anything Republicans Say
Republican attacks on President Obama’s plans for Medicare are growing more heated and inaccurate by the day. Both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan made statements last week implying that the Affordable Care Act would eviscerate Medicare when in fact the law should shore up the program’s finances.
Both men have also twisted themselves into knots to distance themselves from previous positions, so that voters can no longer believe anything they say. Last week, both insisted that they would save Medicare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program, a bizarre turnaround for supposed fiscal conservatives out to rein in federal spending.
The likelihood that they would stand by that irresponsible pledge after the election is close to zero. And the likelihood that they would be better able than Democrats to preserve Medicare for the future (through a risky voucher system that may not work well for many beneficiaries) is not much better. THE ALLEGED “RAID ON MEDICARE” A Republican attack ad says that the reform law has “cut” $716 billion from Medicare, with the money used to expand coverage to low-
income people who are currently uninsured. “So now the money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you,” the ad warns.
What the Republicans fail to say is that the budget resolutions crafted by Paul Ryan and approved by the Republican-controlled House retained virtually the same cut in Medicare.
In reality, the $716 billion is not a “cut” in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from wholly reasonable provisions in the reform law.
One big chunk of money will be saved by reducing unjustifiably high subsidies to private Medicare Advantage plans that enroll many beneficiaries at a higher average cost than traditional Medicare. Another will come from reducing the annual increases in federal reimbursements to health care providers — like hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies — to force the notoriously inefficient system to find ways to improve productivity.
And a further chunk will come from fees or taxes imposed on drug makers, device makers and insurers — fees that they can surely afford since expanded coverage for the uninsured will increase their markets and their revenues.
NO HARM TO SENIORS The Republicans imply that the $716 billion in cuts will harm older Americans, but almost none of the savings come from reducing the benefits available for people already on Medicare. But if Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan were able to repeal the reform law, as they have pledged to do, that would drive up costs for many seniors — namely those with high prescription drug costs, who are already receiving subsidies under the reform law, and those who are receiving preventive services, like colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations, with no cost sharing.
Mr. Romney argued on Friday that the $716 billion in cuts will harm beneficiaries because those who get discounts or extra benefits in the heavily subsidized Medicare Advantage plans will lose them and because reduced payments to hospitals and other providers could cause some providers to stop accepting Medicare patients.
If he thinks that will be a major problem, Mr. Romney should leave the reform law in place: it has many provisions designed to make the delivery of health care more efficient and cheaper, so that hospitals and others will be better able to survive on smaller payments.
NO BANKRUPTCY LOOMING The Republicans also argue that the reform law will weaken Medicare and that by preventing the cuts and ultimately turning to vouchers they will enhance the program’s solvency. But Medicare is not in danger of going “bankrupt”; the issue is whether the trust fund that pays hospital bills will run out of money in 2024, as now projected, and require the program to live on the annual payroll tax revenues it receives.
The Affordable Care Act helped push back the insolvency date by eight years, so repealing the act would actually bring the trust fund closer to insolvency, perhaps in 2016.
DEFICIT REDUCTION Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan said last week that they would restore the entire $716 billion in cuts by repealing the law. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that repealing the law would raise the deficit by $109 billion over 10 years.
The Republicans gave no clue about how they would pay for restoring the Medicare cuts without increasing the deficit. It is hard to believe that, if faced with the necessity of fashioning a realistic budget, keeping Medicare spending high would be a top priority with a Romney-Ryan administration that also wants to spend very large sums on the military and on tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
Regardless of who wins the election, Medicare spending has to be reined in lest it squeeze out other priorities, like education. It is utterly irresponsible for the Republicans to promise not to trim Medicare spending in their desperate bid for votes.
THE DANGER IN MEDICARE VOUCHERS The reform law would help working-age people on modest incomes buy private policies with government subsidies on new insurance exchanges, starting in 2014. Federal oversight will ensure a reasonably comprehensive benefit package, and competition among the insurers could help keep costs down.
But it is one thing to provide these “premium support” subsidies for uninsured people who cannot get affordable coverage in the costly, dysfunctional markets that serve individuals and their families. It is quite another thing to use a similar strategy for older Americans who have generous coverage through Medicare and who might well end up worse off if their vouchers failed to keep pace with the cost of decent coverage.
Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan would allow beneficiaries to use vouchers to buy a version of traditional Medicare instead of a private plan, but it seems likely that the Medicare plan would attract the sickest patients, driving up Medicare premiums so that they would be unaffordable for many who wanted traditional coverage. Before disrupting the current Medicare program, it would be wise to see how well premium support worked in the new exchanges.
THE CHOICE This will be an election about big problems, and it will provide a clear choice between contrasting approaches to solve them. In the Medicare arena, the choice is between a Democratic approach that wants to retain Medicare as a guaranteed set of benefits with the government paying its share of the costs even if costs rise, and a Republican approach that wants to limit the government’s spending to a defined level, relying on untested market forces to drive down insurance costs.
The reform law is starting pilot programs to test ways to reduce Medicare costs without cutting benefits. Many health care experts have identified additional ways to shave hundreds of billions of dollars from projected spending over the next decade without harming beneficiaries.
It is much less likely that the Republicans, who have long wanted to privatize Medicare, can achieve these goals.
By: Editorial, The New York Times, August 18, 2012
“Missing The Medicare Forest For The Trees”: GOP Want’s You To Believe They Are The Defenders Of “Socialized Medicine”
I was reading Charles Krauthammer’s column this morning, and noticed that he’s adopted the Romney/Ryan talking points on Medicare — the far-right columnist accused President Obama of “robbing Granny’s health care.”
My first instinct was to explain how wrong this is, but it occurred to me how disjointed the nature of the debate has become. The fight over Medicare, on a conceptual level, got off track recently and has been careening in the wrong direction ever since.
Given how critically important this is in the presidential election, let’s pause for a moment to consider the bigger picture.
The Romney/Ryan argument is that Obama/Biden is cutting Medicare, hurting seniors, and undermining the financial security of the Medicare system. All week, I’ve been making an effort to set the record straight by pointing to the facts: Obama’s savings strengthen the system; benefits for seniors have been expanded, not cut; the Republican budget plan embraced the same savings Romney/Ryan is now condemning; the GOP privatization alternative is dangerous; etc.
The facts are, to be sure, still true, and they’re important. But let’s ignore the trees and look at the forest.
What is Medicare? It’s a massive, government-run system of socialized medicine. It’s wildly popular, very successful, and one of the pillars of modern Democratic governance. This government-run system of socialized medicine was created by Democrats against the opposition of conservative Republicans, and it’s Democrats who’ve fought to protect it for more than a half-century.
Or to summarize, the left loves Medicare and always has; the right hates Medicare and always has. For liberals, the system is a celebrated ideal; for conservatives it’s an unconstitutional, big-government outrage in desperate need of privatization.
In 2012, once we get past all of the talking points and attack ads, we’re left with this: Romney/Ryan wants you to believe they’re the liberals. No, seriously. Think about what the Republican presidential ticket, Fox News, Krauthammer, Donald Trump, and the Republican National Committee have been saying all week: those mean, rascally Democrats cut our beloved Medicare and voters should be outraged.
In other words, the argument pushed by the most right-wing major-party ticket in a generation is that Barack Obama is a left-wing socialist who wants government-run socialized medicine and that Barack Obama is a far-right brute who wants to undermine government-run socialized medicine.
If you care about protecting the popular system of socialized medicine, the argument goes, your best bet would be to put it the hands of conservative Republicans who steadfastly oppose the very idea of a government-run system of socialized medicine.
The questions voters should ask themselves, then, are incredibly simple: putting aside literally everything else you’ve heard this week, why in the world would a Democratic president want to “gut” Medicare? Why would liberal members of Congress and the AARP join a Democratic president in trying to undermine the system Democrats created and celebrate?
Why would voters expect conservative Republicans to be the trusted champions of socialized medicine?
As a political matter, I understand exactly what Romney/Ryan is trying to do. As Greg Sargent explained this morning, “It’s important, though, to get at the true nature of the Romney strategy here. It isn’t about drawing an actual policy contrast with the Obama campaign. It’s about obfuscating the actual policy differences between the two candidates over the program.”
That’s exactly right. The Republican plan to deal with the intense unpopularity of the Romney/Ryan plan is to simply muddy the waters — both sides are accusing the other side of being against Medicare; the media doesn’t like separating fact from fiction; and voters, even well-intentioned folks who want to know the truth, aren’t quite sure what to believe. For all I know, this obfuscation strategy might actually work.
But while assorted hacks may find partisan value in falsely accusing Obama of “robbing Granny’s health care,” does that make any sense on a conceptual level? Since when do Republicans look at President Obama and think he’s too conservative when it comes to socialized medicine?
All I’m suggesting is that a little critical thinking on the part of the electorate and the political world can go a long way.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 17, 2012
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