Paul Ryan: I Was Against Cutting Medicare Before I Was For It

      The idea that Paul Ryan would bring some clarity to the Romney campaign seems a quaint memory now. It's not really clear what Ryan-or Romney-is trying to say anymore

       We get that they want to lie and pretend President Obama is the one committed to abolishing Medicare and that they only mean to rescue it. But the kind of knots their tying themselves in would make a Samurai Warrior jealous-they tie knots don't they?

       "Paul Ryan, in his ongoing evolution from active supporter to newfound critic of the Affordable Care Act’s $716 billion in Medicare savings, now claims he actually opposed the cuts before he embraced them (and then turned against them again later)."

      “We would never have done it in the first place,” Ryan told reporters Thursday.

       "The confusing new wrinkle is the latest example of Ryan’s awkward contortions as he tries to reconcile the Romney campaign’s new promise to restore the $716 billion in cuts with Ryan’s previous decision to include the same exact cuts in two Republican budgets he wrote."

      "On Thursday, Ryan tried to square the circle with reporters, explaining that he tried to reverse the cuts by voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but restored them in his own budgets anyway. Per the pool report:

“First of all, those are in the baseline, he put those cuts in. Second of all, we voted to repeal Obamacare repeatedly, including those cuts. I voted that way before the budget, I voted that way after the budget. So when you repeal all of Obamacare what you end up doing is that repeals that as well. In our budget we’ve restored a lot of that. It gets a little wonky but it was already in the baseline. We would never have done it in the first place. We voted to repeal the whole bill. I just don’t think the president’s going to be able to get out of the fact that he took $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare.”

     "On Wednesday, Ryan for the first time signaled his support for the Romney campaign’s pledge to reverse the cuts, complicating the math for both candidates’ repeated vows to rapidly close the deficit.
So the score now stands at: Ryan says he wouldn’t have cut Medicare. Then Obama made those cuts. Then Ryan voted to reverse them. Then he decided to bring them back in the Republican budget. Now he opposes them and thinks they hurt seniors."

         http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-on-gop-budgets-medicare-cuts-obama-started-it.php?ref=fpb

         Yeah, it's as clear as mud. Aren't you glad we have the Serious One around to explain all this for us? I particularly like his little flourish: Careful this is going to get a little wonky now.

          Falling back on his "wonkish" reputation. Of course, his wonkishness is nothing but an urban legend. What he is is not a wonk but merely a a dime store Right wing think tank scribbler. Again as we've pointed out before, the President did not reduce anyone's benefits. That's what's different about Ryan's cuts-at least when he made them. Now he says he takes them back.

         Adding to further confusion, Romney this morning now says that his plan and Ryan's plan are "almost identical." Is this true of the first Ryan budget, the 2nd or the new Romney budget-whatever is in that?

        The fact is that replacing the cuts is a bad idea. It would actually reopen the donut hole that the President filled with the original cut. What Ryan keeps trying to obfuscate is that Obama's cut was just a redirection of funds from overpayments to insurance companies to senior citizens in ACA and the poor.

        By putting the Romney back in Medicare it would not increase payments to the recipients but simply go into the pockets of the insurance companies. It would also mean that Medicare would only be solvent until 2016 rather than 2024 under the President's plan.

       And it would reopen the donut hole-opened up by the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit of Ryan and company in 2003 without Democratic support.

      That opened up an ever expanding gap between the first few dollars paid into the drugs and then the big gap in the middle. What it has done is lead to higher prescription prices for seniors every year under Medicare Part D. Obama's "cut" in Medicare actually closes up the gap. Ryan-Romney with their attempt to pander by saying they'll put the "cuts" back are actually reopening the donut whole as well as a windfall to the insurance companies and again reducing Medicare's solvency.