And it still misses by a Mile.
FreedomWorks just Retweeted this link from Townhall.com claiming Democrats are "Repeating the Lie of the Year" against Ryan.
In an effort to scare senior citizens, Democrats repeated and overheated a charge that Politifact branded the 2011 “lie of the year” upon hearing that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has joined Mitt Romney as a running mate.
....
Remember, Politifact is a Left-leaning outfit, yet even they felt compelled to slam Democrats for their egregious distortions of Paul Ryan's Medicare plan.
Hey remember what the prior "Lie of the Year" was?
Death Panels
Yeah yeah, I've read the PolitiFraud Spin on this. - who for the record are not "Left-Leaning" when they call perfectly true things 'Half True' - and it all really comes down to a difference of opinion. Democrats say that the core of Medicare, the part the it Began with is it's Doctor Visitation (Part-A) and it's Hospitalization Plans (Part-B).
Politifact doesn't deny that these portions - yes, for people under 55 - would be Eliminated.
As it exists now, Medicare is government health insurance for people age 65 and over and for people under 65 with certain disabilities. It helps pay for doctor visits, inpatient and outpatient hospital care, other services and prescription drugs.
Rather than getting health insurance from the government, Medicare recipients would use the payment toward the cost of buying private health insurance.
Medicare is a Government Health Insurance Plan, "Payment Assistance" for Private Plans which cost as much as 14% more, while you're receiving 20% Less to pay for them - IS. Not. Medicare.
It's something else, but it's not what Medicare was created or intended to be. A Public Health Insurance extension of the Public Retirement Insurance Plan (Social Security) for the Elderly, because Private Plans couldn't be trusted not to Fail.
Replacing that with Private Plans is well, more likely to FAIL.
And there's more.
The Counter punch has five points.
(1) The Republican reform plan totally exempts anyone over the age of 55 from any changes. When President Obama promised Americans "if you like your plan, you can keep it" to push Obamacare, he didn't tell the truth.
The ABCBlog post
he links too, claims costs haven't come down yet. Nowhere does he admit
the full plan isn't implemented yet, including the primary cost controlling feature the 80-80% Medical Loss Ratio requirement.
That requirement alone has already cause private insurers to issue $1.1 Billion in Rebate Checks.
When Laird Le found a check for $70.02 in the mail, he wasn't quite sure why. Turns out, he's one of the estimated 13 million Americans that will receive a rebate on their health insurance premiums as a result of the health care reform law recently upheld by the Supreme Court.
Look inside your mailbox: By the end of the month, you could be getting one of these refunds, which are are expected to total $1.1 billion this year.
How's that for fulfilling a promise to reduce costs to consumers? And yeah, if you like your plan -
You can Still Keep It.
Real People in the Real World know this is true - they still have their plan. And a lot of those plans are getting better.
2) The Democrats' non-plan does the opposite. It has already slashed more than half-a-trillion dollars from Medicare to fund Obamacare, and it has established an unaccountable and extremely powerful bureaucratic board to ration care in order to keep costs down.
Oh, look were back to
Death Panels again.
No, they haven't cut half-a-trillion dollars out of Medicare to fund anything - since the majority of those cost are going to come from improving efficiencies not slashing coverage. Coverage is Increasing with the expansion of Preventive Care for Mamograms & Cancer Screenings, costs are coming down (see rebates above), and the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board for Medicare can only make recommendations to the head of HHS. The HHS head has the power to implement them, and frankly that's a power they already had.
The Right has tried to make it seem like his Board can in some way circumvent Congress, but that's not the case. HHS can implement changes to improve the efficiency of Medicare, and also they are prohibited for Reducing Quality of Service in order to gain those savings, by Law.
(3) Medicare's own accountants have calculated that Medicare will be insolvent within 12 years. As Democrats claim that Romney and Ryan want to "kill Medicare" or "end Medicare as we know it," they fail to mention that the calendar and basic arithmetic will do that in the face of inaction.
Ok, um, Medicare Accountants have
Always provided a projected date on when the money collected for Medicare would not match the money going out - and y'know what? Every year that target keeps moving forward. In fact the Trustee Report for 2010 states that the
Solvency Window was widened from 6 years to 18 Years by the Implementation of the - wait for it - Affordable Care Act.
For Medicare, [The Report] projects that changes put in place by the new health reform law will help extend the life of the program's trust fund by 12 years – from 2017 to 2029. But this projection comes with cautions that such gains will be dependent on the federal government achieving significant health care savings in the years to come.
The more recent reports have
scaled that extension back down from 18 to 12 years because of the continuing recession.
In 2010, the Trustees reported that, as a result of health care reform, the HI Trust Fund was expected to remain solvent until 2029 – 12 years longer than they had predicted in 2009. This year's report, though not as favorable, still projects a longer solvency period for the HI Trust Fund than had been reported in 2006 through 2009. According to the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), the projected length of continued solvency for the HI Trust Fund has averaged 13.7 years since 1990, with projections ranging from a high of 28 years in 2001 and 2002 to a low of 4 years in 1997.
So this is always a moving, jumping, crawling target as conditions and situations change.
(4) After his plan was criticized for being too partisan in the first "Path to Prosperity" budget, Paul Ryan adjusted his reforms in the FY 2013 version. He updated his Medicare reform to embrace a bipartsian solution he co-crafted with progressive Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), which maintains the original "premium support" model, but includes traditional Medicare as an option for future seniors.
And this is true. Ryan's Latest plan with Ron Wyden does
restore both Medicare Part-A and Part-B. But here's the thing the "Premium Support" model, it's NOT new (my own Mother is using it to get coverage from Aetna) - it's essentially what's already contained in
Medicare Part-C, also known as Medicare Advantage. In that program the government pays private insurers to provide the care, so a result hardly anyone has really even discussed the Ryan/Wyden plan. And this doesn't address the Stated Goal of the GOP which is to
Repeal the Exchanges, the Independent Advisory Board, the Medical Lose Ratio and Preventative Care Measures that are in the current law.
By the way, if eliminating Medicare Part-A and Part-B was such a brave and wonderful idea to begin with - and no one should have been upset at the suggestion - why'd Ryan give up it to expand Medicare Part-C - which as I said still cost 14% more than Traditional Medicare since 1997 when was passed - with Wyden?
And then of course there's Medicare Part-D, which Ryan Voted for and created the infamous Donut Hole for Seniors, one that the Affordable Care Act finally closes.
Still it is good to know that not even Paul Ryan, still supports the Paul Ryan Health Care plan.
(5) The Romney/Ryan plan does not impose "draconian and radical cuts." In fact, the Republican budget increases spending. Every year. It simply slows the rate of increase. The most recent House-passed budget increases spending from $3.53 Trillion to $4.88 Trillion within the next ten years. This does, however, spend trillions less than President Obama's unanimously-defeated budgets envisioned. In case you hadn't noticed, we're broke, and it's getting worse.
$5 Trillion In Tax Cuts, which mostly go to Wealthy and will have to be offset by increased taxes or fees as well as reduced subsidies and tax credits to the POOR AND VULNERABLE do not Lie, and no slight-of-hand accounting tricks that "the spending still goes up, only slower" changes that fact of whose going to wind up holding the empty bag and who will be walking away with the Loot.
Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed – including reducing marginal tax rates substantially, eliminating the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) and maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment – would provide large tax cuts to high-income households, and increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers. This is true even when we bias our assumptions about which and whose tax expenditures are reduced to make the resulting tax system as progressive as possible.
Their argument that Ryan's Plan didn't end Most of Medicare (
all of it that existed before 1997) is wrong.
Their claim that ObamaCare isn't producing savings and isn't extending the life of Medicare - Is Wrong.
Their claim that "Unelected Boards will Ration Care to Keep Costs Down" - is Wrong. They only advise, HHS will decide - just as they already do.
Their claim that Ryan has rediscovered the value of Traditional Medicare is true - but then why was he trying to Kill Traditional Medicare for so long?
Their claim that the Romney/Ryan Budget would not create massive cuts primarily to programs that support people who most need them while giving people who are Already Doing Great a Gigantic Massive Wet Kiss of a Tax Kickback that they're just going squirrel away and try to hatch in the Cayman's, Swiss Back Account or a Great Big Magical IRA - is a bald face LIE.
Vyan