Romney's Specious Attack on Obama's "Medicare Cuts"

      They have latched onto it and won't let it go as it enables them to pretend to be the ones trying to save Medicare when in fact their agenda is to privatize it.

      However, the more you look at Romney's plan to "restore Obama's cuts to Medicare" the more you realize that what he's really promising to do is nothing of the kind.

      Ryan, of course, in his latest budget had kept the Obama cuts in. However, that was very different from what Obama did as that money was to be sent out to the wealthy in tax cuts. So under the Ryan plan that was a real Medicare cut.

      The President's cut was not a cut to beneficiaries but a cut in the overpayments to insurers. We should also point out that these overpayments to insurers is due to the Medicare Advantage prescription drug benefit that Ryan and George W. Bush passed in 2003.

      Medicare Part D was on balance not a good bill for many reasons. For one it didn't allow the government to negotiate with drug companies. For another, it left seniors with a huge "donut hole" they had to make up themselves:

     "The Medicare Part D coverage gap — informally known as the Medicare donut hole — is the difference of the initial coverage limit and the catastrophic coverage threshold, as described in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program administered by the United States federal government. After a Medicare beneficiary surpasses the prescription drug coverage limit, the Medicare beneficiary is financially responsible for the entire cost of prescription drugs until the expense reaches the catastrophic coverage threshold."

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D_coverage_gap

     While the idea to have Medicare cover prescription drugs was a good one, the way Ryan's Republicans-he voted for it-in 2003 passed this was largely a monstrosity.

     Now, however, Romney is muddying the waters by declaring that he'll reverse the President's "cuts." On a political level it's not a bad gambit. The fact is that the Ryan budget if very unpopular and the Romney campaign knows it.

     So they think that if they can muddy the water enough by  continuing to accuse the President of his own Medicare cuts this will give them a "draw" whereby at some point in the future they'll get back to bashing the President about the economy.

    Of course, even if it works seamlessly it's a defensive posture that hopefully at some time in the distant future may allow them to get back on offense. Meanwhile, even before Romney gave the Ryan budget the ultimate embrace by selecting Ryan, his plan to run against the "Obama recession" was pretty weak.

   It had not been working and Romney was getting more and more battered. The day before Ryan's selection, he had actually begged for a "truce" on his business career and failure to release his tax returns as very candidate since his father in the 60s has. Now, however, he's got no room for plausible deniablity on the Ryan plan to eliminate Medicare. So he's trying to confuse things by screaming "Stop thief" as he and Ryan abscond with the Medicare benefits of the American people.

  Actually though, replacing the Obama "cuts" is a very bad idea for many reasons. For one it reduces Medicare's solvency from 2024 back to 2016. This means that Romney would have to find another way to  make it solvent.

  And restoring these cuts would mean restoring the overpayments to insurers-due to the Ryan's donut hole due to Medicare Part D. This would not increase benefits for Medicare recipients. It would actually increase their payments to insurers by eliminating Obamacare.

   The whole point of Obamacare was to insure 32 million uninsured Americans and therefore lower the cost of Medicare. This is why it is pure fiction to claim that Obama's reduction was in any sense a "cut."

   The Romney campaign is trying to use all the smoke and mirrors at its disposal:

    ‘‘The idea that restoring funding to Medicare could somehow hasten its bankruptcy is on its face absurd,’’ said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

      "Campaign officials say arcane federal accounting rules create a false sense of security about Medicare. They allow savings like Obama’s cuts to also count toward funding other programs or reducing the overall deficit."

       http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/08/18/undoing-obama-medicare-cuts-may-backfire-romney/A3zYRzi1XzA3VM6fWj5uRL/story.html

      Doesn't Ms. Saul-the same one who recently got Romney into hot water by praising RomneyCare in Massachusetts-contradict herself here? If "arcane federal accounting rules" allow Obama's cuts to also count as funding towards other programs isn't the truth that they aren't really cuts but in truth a redistribution from funding Ryan's donut hole for the drug companies to serving the needs of seniors and the poor in ObamaCare?

    ‘‘Gov. Romney’s plan is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that control cost throughout the health care system and extend the solvency of Medicare,’’ Saul said. ‘‘He will then implement real entitlement reform that places Medicare on a sustainable long-term footing so that future generations of Americans will not have to worry whether the program will be there for them.’’

     Did Ms. Saul say entitlement reform?! I thought the RSCC urged candidates not to use that phrase? Anyway, the main point is clear: doing away with Obama's cuts to insurers will only necessitate cuts somewhere else-knowing the priorities of Ryan-Romney, it will probably be either reduced benefits for recipients or higher taxes for the non-rich.

    "Romney would ‘‘have to find other ways to get the cost down in the future,’’ said economist Marilyn Moon, a former trustee overseeing Social Security and Medicare finances.

   ‘‘These (Obama cuts) were all on service providers,’’ said Moon, now director of the health program at the nonpartisan American Institutes for Research. Romney ‘‘would have three options: either cut it out of providers in a different way, ask beneficiaries to pay higher premiums in various ways, or raise taxes in order to pay for it.’’

    What Romney should be asked is how exactly he plans to bring down costs in the future. Will it be higher premiums or tax hikes on the nonrich? I doubt it will be another cut it from providers as that's what Obama has already done and he wants to reverse that.

   Romney's soundbite about Obama's fictional cuts to Medicare sounds good. But the more you look at the facts the more clear it becomes how specious it in fact is.