Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and a number of GOP big shots came out in force over the last few days to attack President Obama for "stealing" $716 billion from Medicare to fund the Affordable Care Act.
The Republican attack was marvelously uncoordinated, with Romney, Ryan, and a horde of faithful surrogates stumping, interviewing, and appearing on almost every political talk show to toe the line on a chain of talking points. They are as follows:
- President Obama stole, cut, and/or raided $716 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare.
- Medicare is going broke. By 2014, according to bipartisan estimates, the entitlement program will become insolvent. This problem has to be dealt with now because it will get really ugly if we wait.
- Paul Ryan worked with Ron Wyden, a Democrat, on this Medicare plan, so it's the only truly bipartisan bill on this issue that exists.
- No one 55 years of age or older will be affected by Paul Ryan's Medicare plan.
- Romney/Ryan are running on Romney's plan, not Ryan's.
Watch the video for a rundown of all the Republican arguments on Medicare.
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All the right-wing surlygates in the party could jump in on this and it wouldn’t help a bit. They’d still have this... wishy-washy... hum-drum... flip-flop.. mess.Must be the “Romney/Ryan Plan.”
"Our plan is, for people 55 years of age and older, there's no change. The only change I'd mention is we'd restore the $817 billion President Obama took out of the Medicare trust fund," said Romney.
.....Uhhh, $817 Billion?"
For example, when Obama gutted Medicare by taking $717 billion out of it, the Romney plan does not do that. That's a big difference," said Romney spokesman John Sununu to CNN.
.... Uhhh, yeah, about $100 billion.
Romney initially misstated the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the cost increase –$716 billion – that a repeal of the Obama health care law would entail. That reduction doesn't come from patient care, but changes in hospital payments and Medicare Advantage payments to private insurers.
....Uhhh, now it's $716, not $717 billion? And not from seniors at all... it doesn't affect them?
"I think the $716 billion that our seniors have paid for should stay with our seniors' program. It should be restored to the Medicare trust fund ... to make its solvency last longer," Romney said.... however, Medicare's trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 instead of 2024 without the cuts, according to estimates by the program's own experts.
Uhhh, $716 billion... finally got the amount right.... but not the cuts or the senior's thing.
Romney did not answer why he did not object to the $716 billion cut when it was included among the savings in Ryan's proposal.
....Uhhh, answering that would kind of blow your whole pitch wouldn't it Mitt?
The Democrats smoke and mirrors accounting tactics used to try to say ObamaCare wasn't going to add to the deficit (already spinning out of control in 2009 as the stimulus bill and other way over the last budget we had passed by George Bush's Administration for 2009 fiscal year was way over spent.
Saying that the Congress of the United Stated over the nes was going to cut doctor's fees, hospital's fee's, medical clinic and radiology and labratory fees, etc. and that Medicare administrators were going to root out fraud and waste from Medicare all to the tune of $500 billion (the $216 billion additional comes from the killing of Medicare Advantage (Obama: "If you like the health insurance policy you have, you can keep it"..NOT!) Intereting, though, is that even if they don't get the savings and the cuts in waste and fraud, the $716 billion will still be coming out of the Medicare Trust Fund for payming of several provisions of ObamaCare, hastening Medicare's total bankruptcy, which was estimated to come in 2022. But that is not much different than the robbing from the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds that has been going on for some time now by dishonest accounting tricks in Washington, DC to support other social spending programs.
As to your rather naive statement, bdirms, that "the reduction doesn't come from patient care, but changes in payments to hospitals and Medicare Advantage payments to insurance companies," you can't be serious? If the payments or fees to physicians and hospitals and clinics and ancilliary medical service providors are cut as drastically as this ObamaCare's needs for $500 billion of Medicare Trust Fund monies, there is going to be a whole lot less patient care available to seniors. And a lot more shifting of those costs to patients of all ages with health insurance, the cessation of which was the supposed reason why peoples health insurance premiums were advertised as dropping by an average of $2,500 per family policy as the ObamaCare was to bring all those uninsured free loafers under the expanded Medicaid or individual health insurance policy umbrella (more smoke and mirrors!).
In other new, I'm totally sure that only queers and flaming fagots watch South Park...so I wasn't at all surprised to see O'Donnell go there on the white board thing.
Get your homophobic insults right at least, Grandpa. It's Anderson Cooper who's gay... And Rachel Maddow...
And I see your white trash upbringing is showing; is that where you were taught about how the KKK was going to save white America?
Give me a D... D! Give me an O...O! Give me a U... U! Give me a C..
Yeah, that's what even polite folks call Granda...
It seems as if MSNBC is vigorously playing wall to wall Romney and Romney super pac ads attackiing President Obama which are being analyzed and commented on by MSNBC folks. . Then the ads between segments are Romney ads attacking President Obama. It's getting highly noticeable that much of the content on MSNBC is political attacks ads against President Obama. Ummm, plus a lot of pundits and guests are strategizing as to how Romney could run effective attack ads against President Obama and what strategies could be exploited by Repubs. to beat President Obama. So, is this what Republicans refer to when they say MSNBC is "liberal?" Romney is receiving a small fortune's worth of political attack ads against Obama being broadcast for free by MSNBC. Shouldn't MSNBC be required to run a similar amount of free ads for President Obama? Why is MSNBC running so many free political ads for Mitt Romney and seemingly comparatively few free political ads for President Obama? What's up with that? Is this just more in the way of underhanded corporate political media politics? Is this just more right wing corporate political exploitation from political media which is generally now trusted by only 10% of Americans? Watching MSNBC now is something like watching a Romney and the GOP anti Obama attack ad marathon.
You are totally out to lunch! Nice, though, the the FCC regulations say if you're going to take Democrat campaign adds, you have to also accept paid time running Republican adds too. I can see how that frosts the buns of the usual audience of this in the bag for Obama network.
Can we just get the blood-thirsty Democrats to give up their ill-conceived war mission in Afghanistan? The nation tires of this, and is ready for new direction.
The democrats ill-conceived war mission in Afghanistan? Where have you been living for the past decade?
Not many in Congress in 2001 and 2002 that weren't in total support of the Afghanistan War, Sueb1. And to boot, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were avid supportors of the Iraq War early on, and Barrack Obama when he came to the Senate as the junior Senator from Illinois was aboard on funding the Afghanistan War effort too? Clear up your confusion?
And the entire GOP Party voted for it do you remember that Keith? Let's revisited so other things about the GOP and what they said "you are either with us or against us", another quote "it's unpatriotic not to support this President", another quote "you can't attack the President while we are at war", another quote "Mushroom Cloud".
Have we cleared up your confusion?
Or watch the video of Paul Ryan making a joke as a 71 year old man is pushed to the ground and handcuffed for asking Ryan about medicare and social security at a Ryan event shortly before he was named Romney's VP pick. Instead of telling the officers 'no, let the man speak', Ryan says, clearly and loudly 'I hope he took his blood pressure medicine" to the laughter of the crowd
.
When you refuse to cease heckling, and try to rush the stage, you're going down. And should be an object of ridicule! Once nominated, Ryan will have Secret Service Protection, and will be federal govemnment personnel putting that kind of fool into restraint, and filing charges against them too.
I want to see the Obama's income tax....I want him to prove that he was born in America.....I want to see this BS kind of campaigning stop.....I think its time for the MEDIA to report without commentary.... let us listen to good old fashion reporting without having to deal with the talking heads... .omg already
He showed several years to run, he was born in Hawaii, but I guess thats not a state. You can't run for president of the United States if you are not a citizen!!! Give it a rest!!! Plus if you don't like msnbc don't watch it!!!
Obama's problem is that he spent his formative years growing up in Indonesia...and his middle school and high school years growing up in liberal, hedonistic Hawaii (where he got started on his redistribute the wealth principles, only with the sharing of marijuana and cocaine and beer). He never assimilated to life and mores in the contintental United States, located in North America.
Now you're reduced to bashing one of the 50 states, Keith? If those "continental United States mores" you allude to are anything like yours, Obama is better off than he can possibly know.
"Pathetic" doesn't begin to describe you.
Keith's problem is that he spent his formative years (all 70-some odd of them) in a vacuum. Evidently, he's still there.
Sue where is Mitt Romney's long form birth certificate and not his certificated of live birth? Was his father even born in the US? The same rules applies to Mitt Romney.
Ryan is a creep!!! I watched that video and I was appalled on the treatment of the 71 yr old man and the callous comment Ryan made! I was also appalled that the rest of the town hall just laughed instead of walking out on Ryan for being so crude and rude, what if that was his mother they arrested cause she spoke her mind!! Ryan is not a man at all for doing that at all!!
Here's the video Katie is referring to. As usual the sources for Grandpa's claim that the man tried to rush the stage came from the voices in his head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBhdXfCdaA8
The really appalling thing is that more people in the audience didn't react the way the heckler did. We're supposed to believe this fellow didn't pay into Medicare for forty years and listen to more "inherited wealth" tell us what he problem is and how the government is making the poor picked on rich folks pay too much in taxes?
And here's the Ryan video from 2009 where he defends Ayn Rand who he's now thrown under the bush...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmW19uoyuO8
Rand was kind of passé by the time I was in school (we were reading a lot of Orwell and Thoreau), but I kind of get the feeling she was the Ann Coulter of her time...
To MSNBC - Who cares about Mitt Romney's tax returns. If he did something illegal, then he will be put in the slammer. If you're not filing charges, then LETS TALK ABOUT THE REAL ISSUES THAT MATTER ... "The Albanese Plan for America"
#1 - Putting people back to work in the USA
#2 - In-shoring work back to the USA
#3 - Getting rid of duplicate government programs that waste taxpayers dollars
#4 - Getting soldiers home and stopping this costly war
#5 - Making the USA competitve in the global economy
#6 - Spurring the manufacturing jobs in the USA
#7 - Making the Federal Government smaller
#8 - Creating incentives for Small Business and cutting big oil tax loopholes and subsidies
#9 - Policy reform related to Illegal aliens
#10 - Balancing the Fedeal Budget and holding Congress accountable
#11 - Removing the Public Sector from the jaws of the Unions. If you work for the government in ANY way, you work for the taxpayer...not your union.
#12 - Getting big business to transfer their billions back to the USA by closing tax loopholes and incentivising them to do so.
#13 - Elimating the lobbying process. Our laws are not being created by the People, they are being created by the people with the most money to sway our Congressmen.
#14 - Ensuring Social Security is available for the elderly.
So Howard Fineman now thinks it's a mistake to talk about Medicare because the American public is more interested in jobs and the economy.
I wonder if Mr. Fineman gave this same advice to Barack Obama as he wasted 18 months forcing ObamaCare on all of us, despite the public wanting him to work on jobs and the economy. Health insurance reform was way down the list of priorities for the public, but Mr. Obama really didn't care. For some reason, I don't recall Mr. Fineman getting too worked up with the President's poor choice of priorities, and his wasting of the American public's time.
Daisy ObamaCare/RomneyCare wasn't force on us that's what President Obama ran on and passed it. Selective amnesia doesn't excuse the fact that health care is still important to many people especially how it effects them economically. And the fact the ObamaCare was mainly a GOP idea until the President agreed with many of their ideas and then they started screaming "Death Panals" BS.
I guess if a GOP President passed it you would be all for it. I'm also for the individual mandate, remember personal responsibilty or have many of you on the GOP side forgot about that part? Or as many of you have said "I shouldn't be force to pay for something I don't want", the response to that as far as I'm concern I should be force to absorb your bill through my insurance premiums. The hospital is not absorbing those cost alone those cost are being past to me who have insurance.
GOP ran on jobs, jobs, jobs, in 2010 so care to explain why the uterus became number one after election and not jobs, jobs, jobs. Just asking.
Oh and one more thing do you remember this "My number one job is to deny Obama everything and make him a one term President" so it was party first and not country first - right? The GOP didn't or doesn't care.
Romneyhood as well as his running mate Paulocchio are the thieves and liars. Romneyhood raided pensions, lies about his taxes and grossly misrepresents and lies about Obama's policies. Paulocchio lies that he wants to preserve medicare when in fact he wants to turn it into a voucher system. The American people will see through these two losers.
Prove those accusations, which of course you are totally incapable of, of Shut The F..k Up. There are thinking men and women discussing points of argument, and we don't have the inclination to read that kind of baseless smear crap you dished out in you adolescent ignorance, Esperanza! And get a job, and support your own arse for once in you life, and pay some taxes while you are at it!
The Republican way: replacing government death panels with private ones. I guess being private that makes it 'okay.'
It was estimated that the Ryan plan would force seniors to pay $6500/year more for their health care. That sounds like just a figure, but the consequences are devastating. Most seniors I know draw about $1000/month social security. Multiply that Social Security by 12 months and you get roughly $12,000. That $6500/year figure is about half their yearly earnings. Those seniors will go without health care rather than spend half their monthly social security check to pay for health insurance because they can't afford it. The Democrats create the social programs, the Republicans keep people off them. This is just a plan created by the Republicans to kill off the seniors sooner so they won't have to spend as much money for their health care or social security so they can give our tax dollars to their corporate and wall street friends.
I really despise Republicans. They clench their bibles, speak out against abortion and gay marriage, claim moral superiority because of their religion, but then they're the first people to advocate throwing the poor and elderly under the bus. What a load of hypocrites. I'm an atheist but I go to church to 'keep up appearances' in my hillbilly Republican town, but the truth of the matter is, I hope, to some extent, their religion is true, and they're judged on the lack of morality of their beliefs.
You forgot the "cling to their guns...as well as their bibles", quoted from Barrack Hussein Obama speaking of the people of Central and Western Pennsylvania and Southern Ohio to his elite, hedonistic secularist colleagues of morally bankrupt San Francisco Gay town in a fund raiser in the 2008 campaign, James Heiney.
According to a newsletter from my accountant:
Also
starting in 2013, there is a new Medicare tax of 3.8 percent on investment
(unearned) income for single taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income
(MAGI) over $200,000 ($250,00 joint filers). Investment income includes
dividends, interest, rents, royalties, gains from the disposition of property,
and certain passive activity income. Estates, trusts and self-employed
individuals are all liable for the new tax.
Exemptions
are available for business owners and income from certain retirement accounts, such
as pensions, IRAs, 401(a), 403(b), and 457(b) plans, is exempt."
Is this the real reason that the INVESTMENT CLASS is opposed to the Affordable Care Act? Because thye will pay some kind of tax on that investment income?
Some kind of tax? You mean on top of the taxes they already pay, and will pay more if Obama has his way with the tax increases...this 3.8% is an additional tax, Barbara from Las Vegas. Kind of like the House take increases on certain games of chances over the average, 'ya know, tinsel townie?
And additional to that, take a look at your next paycheck starting (If you have one in 14% unemployment rate Nevada) and notice that in addition to payroll taxes to support the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare Trust Fund you are paying a % of payroll taxes to support ObamaCare also.
I’d like to suggest a new term for describing the RomneyRyan plan for replacing Medicare: “Vouchercare.” I’m tired of hearing about changes to “Medicare as we know it.” That really does not adequately describe the changes.
“Medicare” versus “Vouchercare.” Which would you prefer?
Romney/Ryan/Republican Strategy--ALL LIES, ALL THE TIME