A new ad from the Romney campaign takes the Democrats' Medicare attacks on Paul Ryan head on. Watch the video below:
"You paid into Medicare for years," the voiceover says. "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."
The campaign plans a large buy with this ad in important swing state media markets.
A new ad from the Montana GOP focuses on Republican Senate candidate Denny Rehberg's record of independence from Washington and his own party, and includes a criticism of Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare reforms, which Rehberg voted against in the House.
The bipartisan Medicare reform plan proposed by Republican House member Paul Ryan and Oregon senator Ron Wyden is dead. At least, that's the perception Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid may be trying to create.
When asked multiple times by reporters about the Wyden-Ryan proposal and how it related to the budget Ryan released today, Reid simply pointed out that Wyden, a liberal Democrat, was against the GOP budget.
Mitt Romney had a strong performance Thursday night in the final debate before the January 3 Iowa caucuses. From Medicare reform to foreign policy to the economy, Romney provided mostly succinct answers within the mainstream of Republican ideas. And because he did not spend much time engaging his opponents, he also avoided missteps like his infamous “$10,000 bet” with Rick Perry at last week’s debate.
Downplaying the role of the controversial Independent Patient Advisory Board (IPAB), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Affordable Care Act “leaves all final decisions” on changing Medicare payment costs in the hands of Congress. “IPAB is a backstop, a failsafe, to make sure Medicare is solvent for years to come,” Sebelius said at a hearing before the House Budget Committee this morning. “It’s up to Congress whether to accept the recommendations [of IPAB] or to come up with recommendations of their own.”
Capretta notes that Obama's three goals in the debt ceiling talks are (1) securing a deficit reduction package to appeal to independents, (2) getting a tax increase that will neuter the Republican party, and (3) keeping the "entitlement status quo" intact.
For some Republicans under the illusion that they could strike a deal that includes Medicare cuts, Capretta warns:
At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, two Medicare trustees, Charles Blahous and Robert Reischauer, testified about necessary cuts to Medicare's Hospital Insurance program (commonly known as Medicare Part A) once the trust fund runs out of money. According to the recently released Medicare trustees' report, Part A is expected to exhaust the trust fund in 2024.
The 60 Plus Association, a conservative answer to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is out with a new ad in support of the Medicare reforms authored by House Budget chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). Watch below:
A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asks Americans whether they would be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who "supports changing Medicare for those under 55 to a system where people choose their insurance from a list of private health plans and the government pays a fixed amount, sometimes called a voucher, towards that cost."
Florida’s Mike Haridopolos, the current state senate president running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, doubled down today on his opposition to Medicare reforms in the 2012 House Republican budget proposal, saying that he would not want to see major reforms to the entitlement program until closer to 2035.
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