{"id":8597,"date":"2012-08-13T07:05:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T14:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=8597"},"modified":"2012-08-13T07:05:25","modified_gmt":"2012-08-13T14:05:25","slug":"did-obama-really-gut-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/13\/did-obama-really-gut-medicare\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Obama Really Gut Medicare?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Since Willard selected Lyin\u2019 Ryan to be his back door boss (like Cheney was GW\u2019s), Medicare has become a touchy subject to them for obvious reasons.&#160; True to Republican strategy they are attacking Obama, where he is strong, and they are weak.&#160; As usual, the truth won\u2019t help them, so they are doing what Republicans do best.&#160; The latest lie is that Obama is the one who gutted Medicare.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; float: left\" title=\"RepubliCare\" alt=\"RepubliCare\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/RepubliCare.jpg\" width=\"260\" height=\"405\" \/>On NBC\u2019s 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\u2019s attempt to increase the program\u2019s solvency amounts to \u201cstealing\u201d from America\u2019s seniors. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it\u2019s Barack Obama,\u201d Priebus insisted\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;But Obama\u2019s health care law extends the solvency of Medicare, and has <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2012\/07\/25\/583121\/obamacare-seniors-prescriptions-savings\/\" target=\"_blank\">already saved seniors $4 billion<\/a> on prescription drugs. The savings reduce the growth rate of reimbursement rates and don\u2019t affect beneficiaries. <\/p>\n<p>Ryan\u2019s plan, conversely, <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2011\/04\/06\/172017\/paul-ryan-medicare-cuts\/\" target=\"_blank\">preserves all of the savings<\/a> included in the reform law, uses them for deficit reduction and <strong>transforms the existing Medicare benefit guarantee into a premium support program that would provide seniors with <font color=\"#ff0000\">depreciating<\/font> vouchers to buy insurance from private plans<\/strong>\u2026 [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/health\/2012\/08\/12\/678931\/republican-chairman-obama-is-stealing-from-seniors-and-has-blood-on-his-hands\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here\u2019s video:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ytY8GC11N5M?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Priebus is not the only one.&#160; Willard has parroted the lie, as have four different Republican talking heads I heard on MSNBC this morning.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The key here is that Obama\u2019s Medicare savings are on the back end.&#160; They do not reduce the benefits or increase the cost for present or future beneficiaries.&#160; One of the chief ways in which he achieved the savings was to equalize the payments for Medicare Advantage over time.&#160; Medicare Advantage plans are private insurance plans that provide Medicare services.&#160; Up until now, the federal government has reimbursed the insurance companies at a 15% higher rate than normal.&#160; That\u2019s not fair.&#160; I have a Medicare Advantage Plan with Providence and love it.&#160; I do not mind that I\u2019m paying a little more because of the equalization.&#160; I recognize that other Medicare recipients should not have to subsidize the health care benefits I have earned.&#160; Medicare Advantage plans also provide Medicare recipients the choices Republicans dishonestly claim that Medicare lacks.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Romney\/Ryan plan provides a depreciating coupon (voucher).&#160; Because it is indexed to increase at a rate way below health care costs, it will buy less coverage every year.&#160; 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\u2019s the RepubliCare Death Benefit.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Willard selected Lyin\u2019 Ryan to be his back door boss (like Cheney was GW\u2019s), Medicare has become a touchy subject to them for obvious reasons.&#160; True to Republican strategy they are attacking Obama, where he is strong, and they are weak.&#160; As usual, the truth won\u2019t help them, so they are doing what Republicans <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/13\/did-obama-really-gut-medicare\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}