Stumping in Florida yesterday, Mitt Romney charged President Obama’s Affordable Care Act will “cut more than $700 billion” out of Medicare.
What Romney didn’t say was that his running mate’s budget — approved by House Republicans and by Romney himself — would cut Medicare by the same amount.
The big difference, though, is the Affordable Care Act achieves these savings by reducing Medicare payments to drug companies, hospitals, and other providers rather than cutting payments to Medicare beneficiaries.
The Romney-Ryan plan, by contrast, achieves its savings by turning Medicare into a voucher whose value doesn’t keep up with expected increases in healthcare costs — thereby shifting the burden onto Medicare beneficiaries, who will have to pay an average of $6,500 a year more for their Medicare insurance, according to an analysis of the Republican plan by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Moreover, the Affordable Care Act uses its Medicare savings to help children and lower-income Americans afford healthcare, and to help seniors pay for prescription drugs by filling the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare Part D coverage.
The Romney-Ryan plan uses the savings to finance even bigger tax cuts for the very wealthy.
Spread the word. Don’t allow the GOP to get away with this demagoguery.
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