Rachel Maddow was on Meet the Press Sunday and did a fine job until Rich Lowry asked her if she supports Obama's cuts in Medicare. Instead of giving a straight forward and intelligent defense of the Affordable Care Act she essentially copped out:
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What is going on right now is conservatives are trying to conflate Obama's cuts into Medicare and the Ryan plan, which turns it into a voucher system that does not keep pace with premiums. They want to confuse the two to make them seem like they are the same thing hoping seniors will call it a draw.
It is not the same thing.
Just because the ACA makes cuts to Medicare doesn't mean they are cuts to benefits. Benefits to seniors on traditional Medicare will remain virtually unchanged. They are cuts all right, but they do not cut benefits. So where are these cuts coming from?
The law specifically states that the guaranteed benefits in Medicare Part A and Part B will not be reduced or eliminated as a result of changes to the Medicare program.
Most Medicare Cuts Are to Private Insurance Plans
The greatest amount of savings in Medicare, about $130 billion over 10 years, will be achieved by reducing overpayments to private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. These are the insurance plans that contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under Medicare Part C to provide benefits to those who voluntarily enroll. MA plans must provide all of the guaranteed benefits under Part A and Part B; they may provide additional benefits with moneys they receive in excess of the cost of providing the guaranteed benefits.
http://www.medicareadvocacy.org/...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ACA") of 2010 made a number of changes to the Medicare program. Several provisions of the law were designed to reduce the cost of Medicare. Congress reduced payments to privately managed Medicare Advantage plans to align more closely with rates paid for comparable care under traditional Medicare. Congress also slightly reduced annual increases in payments to physicians and to hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients. Along with other minor adjustments, these changes reduced Medicare’s projected cost over the next decade by $455 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Furthermore, the ACA closes the doughnut hole for prescription drug coverage. So if anything it expands benefits to seniors.
So an easy answer to Rich Lowry's question would have been, "yes I do support cuts in payments to private insurers. However, I don't support cuts in benefits, which ACA doesn't do but the Ryan plan does."