This new ad from Obama for America will be running in five election battleground states—Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Iowa and Ohio. It takes Romney head-on on one of the most critical health care issues of the campaign: his plan to gut Medicaid.
After Romney's statement that he and President Obama "both care about poor and middle class families," the ad's narrator explains what Mitt Romney's budget actually does: "More huge tax breaks skewed to the wealthy, while cutting nearly $800 billion from Medicaid, even though middle class families rely on Medicaid to help loved ones cover nursing-home care. And it helps parents support children with disabilities.”
Medicaid is one of the most far-reaching government health care programs, with about 62 million people enrolled. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, "about two-thirds of its dollars are spent on the elderly and disabled. [...] Children from low-income households, their parents and pregnant women make up about make up about three-quarters of the 62 million people enrolled in the program." That amounts to one in six families in the country using Medicaid to cover some family member. In other words, Bill Clinton's words, "this is serious."
It's a huge issue for many families, and a great one for the Obama campaign to focus on now, expanding the debate beyond Medicare, which has gotten the lion's share of attention.