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MIAMI – Stumping here on Monday, Mitt Romney told reporters he couldn’t think of how he differs from running mate Paul Ryan when it comes to their views on Medicare.
“We haven’t gone through piece by piece and said, ‘Oh, here’s a place where there’s a difference,’” Romney said of his running mate’s plan. “But my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan, which is ‘Do not change the program for current retirees or near-retirees but do not do what the president has done and that is to cut $700 billion out of the current program.”
Sustaining Medicare, the government’s health care program for seniors, will likely become a central issue in this election campaign – particularly because Ryan, the House budget committee chairman, crafted a controversial plan that analysts say would increase costs for low-income and unhealthy seniors down the road.
In the days since Paul Ryan joined the Republican ticket, the spotlight has been on Ryan's proposal for government to give seniors money to buy their own insurance – part of a sweeping Medicare reform plan. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
Romney was less committal Monday than he was in January, when he said during a debate that Ryan’s Medicare reform plan was “absolutely right on.” Instead, he said that he and Ryan agreed on the main points – and that he planned to restore the $700 billion cut from Medicare under Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Ryan's Medicare plan and his budget: What's in them for you?
There’s a hitch, however: Ryan’s budget makes the same $700 billion in Medicare cuts as the Obama plan. CNBC's Scott Cohn explains:
“The Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – does cut the growth of Medicare by $700 billion over 10 years. But benefits to seniors actually increase under Obamacare, which reduces payments to providers in exchange for more people covered by insurance. What’s more, the Ryan plan – approved by the House – cuts Medicare spending every bit as much as Obamacare does. In fact, it incorporates the very same budget projections, even as it repeals Obamacare. That’s what you call having it both ways.”
Faced with questions about Ryan's support for these cuts, the Romney campaign clarified its position Monday evening and disagreed with those cuts.
"Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have always been fully committed to repealing Obamacare, ending President Obama’s $716 billion raid on Medicare, and tackling the serious fiscal challenges our country faces," Lanhee Chen, Romney’s policy director, said in a statement. "A Romney-Ryan Administration will restore the funding to Medicare, ensure that no changes are made to the program for those 55 or older, and implement the reforms that they have proposed to strengthen it for future generations."
At his last event of the day here in Miami, Romney did not mention Medicare or Obama’s health care reform, focusing instead on economic issues. But when Paul Ryan comes to Florida, where retirees make up a sizable part of the population, it would be safe to assume that Medicare reform will once again take center stage.
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just tell romney hood and little paul...
AMERICANS DON'T NEED NO STINKING VOUCHERS!
TWO MAJOR ASPECTS OF THE THE PAUL RYAN PLAN....Which Mitt endorses.
Put all the social security taxes in Wall Street accounts and let Goldman manage your money – your benefits will be cut by 40%.
Take the Medicare taxes you paid and give them to "for profit" insurance companies – you get a voucher for about 60% of the current cost of your care.
TRANSLATION:
When the stock market bottoms, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR -A S S-.
Watch your -a s s e s- people (especially Senior Citizens).
Larry-nc-2418660..............Every word of that is pure B/S and an out right lie.
Sproing
Just how is that a lie? Have you read the plan? Sounds just about right from what I read.
Critically Thinking ....
For 32 years I've been an Independent and have usually tried very hard to listen to both sides of the discussion to make as informed a decision as I can regarding the best person for the job. If, out of all of the possibilites for a VP pick the best Romney could do was Paul Ryan, I have to take into serious question his decison-making ability and his understanding of the real issues at hand for the American people.
Ryan embodies all that is distorted and convoluted with the currently out-of-touch GOP ideology. The fact that he was so heavily touted by the Tea Party, the holier-than-thou evangelicals and other ultra right wing factions tells me that the die has been cast for a major negative reaction for their ticket and its true agenda.
I can not wait for the first Presidential debate when the two sides are one on one in front of 312 million Americans who will see the real sham for what it is. In a face to face debate I truely believe that Obama will destroy Mitt and company and expose their seedy underbelly for what it is .... a totally nefarious agenda to embellish the positions of the elitists, the priviledged and the uber-rich on the sweat and the backs of an already struggling American populace. Let the games begin shall we?
Peace to all
Nicely worded Post!
Cheers!
Zardoz ... Thank you, and a good evening to you sir.
Peace
And even his Democrat Party members in the House agree that he is perhaps the best informed member when it comes to budgetary matters and the deficits. That's been his specific area on interest ever since he came into politics and he knows his stuff even if you don't agree with his conclusions.
I wouldn't make any comments about imagined "seedy underbelly's" given the reputation for shady dealings, etc., by your hero Obama.
Sproing...
Whether or not Ryan is the 'best informed' of his constituents on any side of the isle is debatable. However, even conceding your assertion on the matter, it holds no water when it comes to the level of financial pain that will be borne upon the backs of Americans least able to help themselves ... the elderly, the sick, the poor and the disenfranchised. There is no morality in Ryan's plan, only a subvertive attempt to put vulnerable Americans into a position where privatization and 'selective vouchers' will result in a loss of the curent level of health care and at a greater cost. Furthermore, the asserted 'savings' would actually translate into the actual additional profits of the private health insurers and providers who will take the monetary avalanche and send it to the tax-haven Cayman Islands... an apparently very familiar place for one Mr. Romney. The 'Romney/Ryan Corporation' agenda is doomed and every critically thinking GOP insider already knows it... they just won't admit. Here's the truth... liars poker only goes so far in the real world when real peoples' lives and health are at stake. Enjoy your delusion sir.
Peace
Mitt made a good pick as a running mate. He has picked someone who will define what he’s about.
THE PAUL RYAN PLAN
1. Eliminate government Social Security
2. Put all the social security taxes in Wall Street accounts and let Goldman manage your money – your benefits will be cut by 40%
3. Eliminate government Medicare
4. Take the Medicare taxes you paid and give them to “for profit” insurance companies – you get a voucher for about 60% of the current cost of your care
5. Cut taxes for the richest American, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and the others at the very top
6. Raise taxes on the middle-class
7. Cut taxes on big corporations
8. Eliminate all government regulation; IRS, EPA. FDA, FAA, FDIC, SEC
9. Increase military spending and US foreign military bases, stay in Iraq and Afghanistan, attack Iran
Source: h t t p://hubpages.com/hub/PaulRyan
Larry ... Nicely listed sir! Lucid and to the point. With his selection of Ryan I doth believe Mr. Romney hath shot himself in his slick Gucci shoes with a GOP secret weapon that hath not been fired in 4 years .... an elephant gun.
Peace
Yeah, and so full of lies, half-truths, twisted logic, and playbook gibberish that even the horse flies can't pick it out from horse^%&* !
Remember where you heard this first. After a couple of weeks of bad polls, Romney will dump Ryan and pick somebody else. It's called the Romney flip flop. If this turns out to be a flop, he will flip maybe to Tim Pawlenty. I don't think that Tim has given up. His biggest problem is that he likes Lady Gaga.
Romneys pays millions of $ in tithes to the Mormon church each year. As a result, people like Romney brings in a whopping $9 billion for the Mormon Church each year.
Yet Romney will not release years of tax returns because it will show that he paid little to no taxes and doing so will incriminate him.
Why is Romney the anti-christ?
This will be the Antichrist. The benchmark by which these false prophets were to be tested concerned their attitude toward the incarnate person of Jesus Christ. Their refusal or failure to acknowledge that Jesus had come in the flesh would expose the spirit of antichrist, according to John. THIS IS WHAT MORMONS BELIEVE
Anti-christ means "false Christ." MORMONS AREN'T CHRISTIAN. They follow the teachings of a false prophet Joseph Smith.
The false ecumenical religious system that is now coming into being will be a clever, but nonetheless false, imitation of the divine Trinity. THIS IS MORMONISM.
Bank of this.
Evangelicals, Jews, and Cathlics will not vote for someone with this belief.
Mormons believe that their church has missionaries in the "spirit world" who are busy spreading the Mormon gospel to dead people who have not yet received it.
Should any of these dead people want to convert to Mormonism, they are required to abide by all its rules, one of which is water baptism. Hence the need for proxies to receive the corporeal waters of baptism.
So they are not going to cut the seniors, they are going to screw their children instead of them, that means they have been lying to the worker for the last oh 38 years or so and taking money out of every pay check during all those year and instead of taking care of them like we have been promised we are going to get a voucher to pay for healthcare, so when you are 75 you can go out and start shopping for healthcare, I can't wait, I want to see the commercial of Ryan pushing the grandma off a cliff in the wheelchair, that is the true Republican healthcare plan.
Scare tactics and you drank the Kool Aid. Go read first, then comment. Its idiots like you that are going to drive us over the cliff with Obama again.
Medicare is broke in the next 20 years. Your children and perhaps you will get nothing if something isn't done now. Ryan's plan does not touch any benefits for anyone 55 and older, and has real insurance reform to control lawsuits, and sell insurance across state lines making it more affordable. What is your plan?
Another issue where most of you libs have not even read the proposal. Obama's own commission he set up with Boles states that revising our Medicare/SS is an emergency. Obama's plan? Tell everyone it stays with its $20 billion of fraud each year. He has no economic experience and will do and say whatever he needs to for re-election.
I think the country is in for another Tea Party surprise in November. Those people who have had enough with this disaster called Obama
Umm..... sally bob.. currently, the tea bag express in congress have about a 9% approval rating..
A historic low....
So far, they've' done nothing.. and most Americans know it..
Hey,.. nice try though...
I think the country is in for another Tea Party surprise in November.
Oh boy, I hope it's cookies!
Seriously... little pauly wants to give future 67 year olds.... "coupons" to go buy health insurance in the private market.. with no controls.. no mandates,.. and no protections??
BWAHHAHAAHAAHAAHAHHAAHAHA !!!!
Good luck little pauly... I'm sure that will be a popular solution for the rube class, but all thinking Americans who have yet to reach 67 years of age.. aren't quite so dumb...
As usual, no plan from Obama is better? Ryan has an idea and is to avoid the lies the government is telling you now that you will have SS and Medicare when you retire. The system is broke. He has many ways to give you choice with your money and to free up insurance across state lines so if you WANT you may buy your own insurance plan. Go read it.
K1200 canot speak or think without petty grade school insults. You can not find solutions in a Dick and Jane mentality.
Another B.S. Pandering to Mr. Obama piece of drivel disguised as a news article from Mr. Obama's official re-election web site (MSNBC) How exactly is Mr. Romeney struggling to get square. Is this something MSNBC just made up as nothing in even this biased prevarication even supports the headline. This is still MSNBC and not NBC. You can change your name but your prevaricating, bias still shows.
You either do something about your problems or you put your head in the sand and hope they go away. That is Mr. Obama's plan. Your country needs progressive new ideas not the follow Europe into the ground archaic plans of Mr. Obama. The Republican ticket is younger by 14 years and their ideas are progressive and new. Or would you all rather be liviing in Italy.?
Nothing new or progressive from the Republicans. Just the same old story...cut social services and tax breaks for the wealthy. Same old same old. Oh, and austerity measures also belong to the Repubs, just like Europe you say?
Social Security is about the only government program that is solvent for twenty years and has never contributed a dime to the deficit, so why the big discussion on how to cut it? Could it be so they won't have to pay back the 2.6 trillion dollars they stole from it to make the deficits look smaller? Keep your hands off my Social Security! The government didn't ask me when they took my money for SS. Now they want to renig on the contract they made.
Obama is gutting Medicare of 716 billion dollars, funneling the money into Obamacare; discontinuing the very popular Senior Advantage Medicare plans; complaining about the expense of Medicare Part D (prescription coverage), and will establish Medicare "panels" that will determine how much care will be permitted for a very sick and old senior citizen. This is what Romney and Ryan should point out to the public. With Obama's plan, Medicare as we know it will be lost for good.
Where are you getting this garbage from?
We have a lot in common but I'm not sure what we have in common yet? Don't you think he would have figured that out before he asked him to be VP? This is just another ploy of Romney's, one he's been working on for years. Make your employees feel as though you're doing what's best for them just before you fire them and steel every cent the employees have put aside for their retirement. When I said you where fired I didn't mean it that way. I'm helping you find a better job.
The DOG & PONY shows goes on and my fellow Americans are dumb enough to take the malarky.
WE DO NOT A SERIOUS PLAN TO REDUCE THE HUGE PUBLIC DEBT BURDEN.
Unfortinately instead of coming up with concret and serious proposals its POLITICS as usual - a lot of promises which after the election will soon be forgotten.
WE NEED A FUNDAMENTAL INCOME TAX REFORM!!!
Instead of taxing NET Income we must TAX GROSS income by doing away with all the deductions and loopholes, setting some realistic progressive tax rates which will result in a substantial reduction of our National Debt.
Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Romney have commented on the TAX PLAN which I submitted to the month ago. Mr. Obama did not favor me with a response and Mr. Romney send me an appeal for a monetary contribution to his campaign.
WAKE UP AMERICA - LET'S THROW ALL THIS CROOKS OUT!!!
Thank you for reading my comments.
Karolus
Karolus I think you'll be surprised at what Mr. Ryan has formulated as a serious starting point for talks on a major tax reform debate. I, like you perhaps, am hoping that it gets the legitimate well reasoned debate and necessary modifications required to have it bear fruit. If it doesn't then we really are looking at years of heartache and acrimony.
A final thought as it's really late here and I have other things I'd rather do.
There's been a lot of hot air tossed around here about social security and most, if not all, has been thrown by people who aren't on it yet. There may be a few but I'm guessing very few. Doesn't matter.
I am on social security and due to a severe health related disability I have been for the past 12 years. The same for Medicare. First, SS isn't a pile of money off which you can live a life like you did before regardless of financial circumstances unless you managed to accumulate and KEEP a very tidy nest egg that you built over decades not 5-10 years of phony inflated housing or fly by night profitless dot com investments.
Prior to the former President George W. and Congress enacting Medicare part B my then monthly prescription bills alone ate up just over 100% of my SS check. I first switched to Canadian imports which for the same drugs cut my costs by almost 50% but even with a supplemental private insurance to cover what medicare doesn't (almost $400 @ mos) it was still rough to put it mildly. Luckily I didn't have a mortgage or car payment and my daughter was grown and on her own. The passage of Part B was a real life saver even if I thought at the time that it was fiscally unsound. By the way, when the Dem's took over instead of ending it they added more benefits to it while continuing to blame Bush.
Anyway here I am 12+ years later on and having to miraculously lived to 65 on SS and Medicare. Medicare Part B still needing that important but expensive supplemental insurance trying to figure out just how this country can continue to care for an ever growing (and rapidly I must add) aged population as it begins to physically fall apart yet thinks it has paid in more then enough to cover any and every expense that crops up. Seriously folks. I'm soon to have surgery to replace both my knees due to extensive chemo and radiation many years past and the normal wear and tear of athletics and age. Just one of the earlier attempts to bring me some relief while avoiding surgery cost $1986.00 per injection per knee and was expected to be effective for only 4-6 months !!!! I don't care who you are, that's expensive. There is no cost benefit ratio that supports that kind of expense and when combined with the additional steroid injections and the Dr's fee I'd bet that little bit of experimentation was well over $5000+.
Had I known and been more personally responsible for that expenditure I would certainly have shopped around, discussed alternative therapies, and even skipped it entirely as I was already convinced from the X-ray's that nothing short of surgery would repair them. That's the basic concept behind HSA's by the way. You get X dollars at the beginning of the year that you can spend on certain types of medical treatment and prescriptions. Whatever you can save from that goes to you at the end of the year as taxable income. The incentive is to get you to shop prices and services to try and save as much as possible and turn it in to taxable income. With the addition of a normal medical plan from the employer this has shown to generate substantial savings for you and your employer.
As a retiree I can't have an HSA but I can exercise my ability to shop prices and services so as to minimize my impact on the system, keep my supplimental insurance rate affordably low, keep a lid on Part B prescription benefit cost, etc. As I said SS is now golden parachute and even with that, medicare, and medicare part B my monthly insurance costs are still in the $600-$700 range.
I'm not looking for sympathy I'm only asking that some of you who don't know or understand the system , it's limitations, and it's costs to you and the country do a little home work now so when the debate about the needed changes starts, as it will very shortly, you won't be taken in by partisans on either side or slick but empty advertising campaigns.
This whole area of medical coverage and care has been so distorted by regulations, laws, and legal actions by both individuals and governments that bit has spun out of control. We have come to expect too much from everybody at too little cost to ourselves, and too may people put material possessions ahead of the cost of health-care until it's too late and then raise their voices in complaint that it's too expensive or unavailable.
If you knew the Affordable Care Act, you surely wouldn't be bashing Ryan's plan. All this spewing of talking points is silly. Get educated.
FYI: Social Security had a $2.5 TRILLION SURPLUS, but congress has been raiding it and leaving IOU's. Both parties may have participated in it, but Republicans it's going broke, unsustainable and needs to be privitized. Let's use a different topic to illustrate how privitization works... prisons. Federal prisons were built to contain convicts to serve their time and were budgeted to provide that service... nothing more. The U.S. now has the most people in prison per capita ON EARTH... over 2,000,000 and more every day. Did you know we are building more privitized prisons everywhere? The Federal prisons were built to contain prisoners whereas privitized prisons were built to MAKE PROFITS for INVESTORS. The fuller a prison, the more capitation (payments per person made by the federal government). The great majority of new inmates are marijuana users. Now, wouldn't this be a good reason why Repubs are against legalizing marijuana and for privatization of our prison system? Fill the prisons and your INVESTMENTS will be well rewarded.
Privatization of Social Security is bringing these same principles to people who will play with OUR money like they do on Wall Street and in banks now. Do you want them to make profits off our contributions to Social Security while they keep taking"fees," "transaction charges," etcetera from the Social Security fund BEFORE you get anything? This is a ploy to legalize access to Social Security funds, nothing more. In simple terms, "privatize" means turning a non-profit government entity into a for-profit enterprise... with no limits to how much "they" can take out of Social Security. DE-regulation of banking, real estate transactions and Wall Street is how we got into this big financial mess. Do we really need to give Social Security away, too?
The Ryan Plan (and I do mean Ryan, not Romney) will give people a "choice" of traditional Medicare or a private retirement plan. I thought liberals were for choice.
All the concern over "death panels" alleged to be involved with The Affordable Care act appears to be circulating again??? Think real hard about this and don't kid yourself---they are already in place in the private health care industry and act every day to deny care. Guess my question is whether you would rather have that power in the hands of our constitutional government that is charged with providing for the general welfare of its citizens or have that power in the hands of a private individual charged with providing for the general welfare of a corporation?
Until we, as a society come to grips with the basic fact that hospice, and heroin for the pain, might be the best possible outcome for many, we are going to continue to squander our resources on heroic measures for end-of-life care that really don't do anything but prolong the agony for the patient and the family.
Do you really belive that a private "death panel" wasn't who refused to put your 60 year old alcoholic friend with cirrosis of the liver high on the liver transplant list when they found out not only that he had crummy insurance but he wasn't going to stop drinking anyway? Give me a break. Yes, I know it's sad and he might be someones dad but as I've heard many times in my life about avoiding bad behavior "just because you can does't mean you should".
Getting rid of Obama care is a step in the right direction....getting rid of Obama......well that is priceless!
Ah, the social security trust fund idea rears its ugly head, wonder what the next head-in-the-sand idea will come up next. What do you think, the government has a giant vault that looks like the ending scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" filled with $100 bills and $20 gold pieces just waiting to hand them off to retiree's??? How naive. Of course government debt was issued, what would you rather do, by a stake in Goldman or another of our fine failed investment companies?
The best description I ever heard of Social Security is that it is a socialcompact between generations with the previous generation's retirement partially funded by the next generation. That support structure worked well as long as the next generation didn't live very long and the workforce kept increasing--well guess what neither of those conditions are holding very well right now due to increased liife spans and pretty rugged economic contions
That "trust fund" is the trust between generations, not some pretend vault full of cash. I guess, given the current hideous climate, that trust is about to be broken and we can join the ranks of the rip-off artists.
Romney is a joke he has no plan of his own . He has no vision for America only what his base tells him. That clown cant put a sentence together on his own. He is a puppet being controlled by the 1%. And Eddie Munster well he just wants to kill the poor and eldery with his nazi gestopo plans. Hell Ryan why not just heard us all in to cattle cars and ship us off to the gas chamber you little Hitler Prick
It's my understanding that Ryan's plan offers an alternative to medicare so that people will have a choice for their coverage. I don't know about you, but given the cuts in pay outs to doctors who take medicare patients is B.S. Why would anyone do the same work that would pay them a dollar for twenty percent less?
By the way, in case you didn't hear: Obama is a millionaire and he's not giving away any of his money.