It's just that simple.
This Ad - IS A LIE.
As Documented by Talking Points Memo.
Obama’s cuts add eight years on the life of Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, largely by reducing reimbursement rates to hospitals, prescription drugs under Medicaid and private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage. The AARP, as well as hospital and drug industries, endorsed the Affordable Care Act despite the cuts.
The cuts to Medicare Advantage plans have resulted in higher enrollment and lower average premiums in 2011 and 2012, according to official figures. Reforms closing the “doughnut hole,” which were partly funded by the cuts, have also saved seniors money on prescription drugs.
In addition, the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion offers seniors greater access to long-term care and other services that Medicare does not provide.
The Department of Health and Human Services projects that beneficiaries of traditional Medicare will save roughly $4,200 over 10 years as a result of the Affordable Care Act. HHS expects that the law will also save seniors between $3,000 and $16,000 on average on prescription drugs, depending on their costs.
You hear that
John Sununu? I wonder what should be
stamped on your forehead now?
It's getting bad, and it's only been three days. Even on the Safe & Sacred Ground of Fox News Paul Ryan can't manage to separate his budget ideas (which include same "Cuts" as Obama's Affordable Care Act), from Mitt Romney's ideas that no one has really heard or seen in detail yet.
Not even Brit Hume Is buying it.
Ryan repeatedly tried to deflect attention from his own highly controversial budget proposal in an interview with Fox News’s Brit Hume Tuesday. Ryan’s plan is both a rallying point for conservatives and a whipping boy for Democratic strategists.
Hume didn’t buy the suggestion that the Romney-Ryan ticket wasn’t running on Ryan’s budget plan, and the interview focused largely on Ryan’s budget package.
And worse, Ryan can't tell you
When Mitt's Budget would Balance - if it even does.
Hume: The budget plan you’re now supporting would get to balance when?
Ryan: Well, there are different — the budget plan that Mitt Romney is supporting gets us down to 20 percent of GDP government spending by 2016. That means get the size of government back to where it historically has been. (Ed Decode: Repeal the New Deal) What President Obama has done is he brought the size of government to as high as it hasn’t been since World War II. We want to reduce the size of government to have more economic [Ed: You mean "Corporate"] freedom.
Hume: I get that. What about balance?
Ryan: I don’t know exactly what the balance is. I don’t want to get wonky on you but we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan. The plan we offer in the House balances the budget. I’d put a contrast. President Obama, never once, ever, has offered a plan to ever balance the budget. The United States Senate, they haven’t even balanced, they haven’t passed a budget in three years.
Hume: I understand that. But your own budget, that you —
Ryan: You are talking about the House budget?
Hume: I’m talking about the House budget. Your budget will be a political issue in this campaign.
Ryan: The House budget doesn’t balance until the 2030s under the current measurement of the CBO baseline.
Y'know how you could Balance the Budget far more rapidly than sometime in the 2030's?
You could implement the People's Budget as put forth by the House Progressive Caucus, which would come into Balance by 2021 without cutting vital services for the people.
Here's what the Economic Policy Institute says:
The Economic Policy Institute has analyzed and scored the specific policy proposals in the People’s Budget and modeled their cumulative impact on the federal budget over the next decade. Our analysis finds that the People’s Budget would balance the federal budget within a decade and place debt held by the public on a sustainable trajectory. Specifically, the budget would move to a surplus of $30.7 billion (0.1% of gross domestic product) in 2021, and debt as a share of the economy would trend downward to 64.1% of GDP in that year. The budget would reduce deficits by $5.6 trillion over the next decade relative to the CBO baseline (adjusted for current policies regarding the “doc fix” and a patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax).
It would also:
o Reduces unemployment—and thus the deficit—through extensive investment in infrastructure, clean energy, transportation and education;
o Ends almost all the Bush tax cuts, creates new tax brackets for millionaires and new fees on Wall Street;
o Full American military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other reductions in military spending;
o Ends subsidies for non-renewable energy;
o Lowers health care costs through a public option and negotiating Rx payments with pharmaceutical companies;
o Raises the taxable maximum on Social Security.
With as much talk that the Ryan Plan is getting for being "Serious" - this plan should be talked about far more since
It comes to balance 10 years more quickly.
Everywhere Ryan goes, he should be asked - "Why does your plan take so much longer to reach Balance than the Progressive Caucus Plan? Why do the middle-class and poor have to pay to make Rich people Richer?" Since when is that the American Way? Screw your neighbors, screw your customers, screw your clients, screw your employees - Chuck You Farley - I got mine, you go out and get your own?"
Not exactly a vision of "One Nation, Indivisible" is it?
All is this just One Reason why Romney/Ryan need to be CRUSHED in November, the Republican Congress must be swept aside like a mattress filled with bed bugs, Democratic Control of the Senate expanded to better limit GOP Obstructionism. They've been Sabotaging the Country for the last 3 1/2 years just to undermine Obama and solidify their own power, it's time to put an end to it.
Vyan