The Blog
Obama’s Medicare Myths
8:55 PM, Aug 16, 2012 • By FRED BARNES
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President Obama is creative. He’s given up on a palpable falsehood about the Romney-Ryan plan to reform Medicare. But he’s retained a few old canards and trotted out a new one.
The new charge? In his speech in Dubuque, Iowa, on Wednesday, he said: “My plan reduces the cost of Medicare by cracking down on fraud and waste and subsidies to insurance companies.”
But roughly 80 percent of Medicare benefits are dispensed by the federal government, not insurance companies. And while Obama’s health care law would ultimately kill the Medicare Advantage program, under which seniors choose private insurance providers, the president is keeping it alive, at least through the election, with an emergency $8 billion subsidy.
The old canards? Obama said Medicare would not be guaranteed for seniors under Romney-Ryan. Sorry, but it would. And he said his reforms in Obamacare “will not touch your Medicare benefits – not by a dime.” But they’re bound to.
A White House spokesman insists the $716 billion in reductions in Medicare spending “do not cut a single guaranteed benefit.” However, they’ll cut fees to providers – hospitals and doctors – which will cause cuts in services to Medicare beneficiaries. Yes, seniors would still have their benefit, but it would be more difficult to use.
Obama also noted that a Medicare plan “authored” by Ryan would “force seniors to pay an extra $6,400 a year.” This is both an exaggeration and irrelevant in the current presidential race. The Romney-Ryan plan is different. Under it, the $6,400 problem, to the extent there was one, is eliminated.
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