FYI, this AP story has been picked up by many newspapers. Some 2,630 times according to Google News.
It's a good article for submitting a comment or LTE, especially to help define what Romney/Ryan and Republicans would do to Medicare if elected.
Basically, the article says:
Obama’s cuts also extended the life of Medicare’s giant trust fund, and by repealing them Romney would move the insolvency date of the program closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.
Instead of running out of money in 2024, Medicare says its trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 without the cuts.
Well, Medicare won't exactly "go broke", since it is
projected to only have enough money to cover 89% of costs in 2024 and 69% of costs in 2086. But, the prominent use of the word "cuts" is probably more problematic.
In the middle of the article, we are eventually told that "cuts were not directly aimed at Medicare's 48 million beneficiaries" and that the savings would reduce payments to service providers. This important distinction was somewhat buried in the article. So, there's an opportunity to respond and reinforce that the savings would not impact beneficiaries.
In addition we should help define the Romney/Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it, since the article ends with this softball:
Romney has not spelled out full details of his Medicare plan. But if it is based upon Ryan's, the budget office says it would rein in Medicare spending more forcefully than Obama has.
The key to this whole debate is precisely that Republicans would make seniors pay more money out-of-pocket in the near future, and telling this truth is where we come in.
Romney's proposal to undue Obama's Medicare savings could force seniors to spend more money out-of-pocket starting in 2016. But we should assume that Romney would implement the Ryan plan in conjunction with his proposal to reverse Obama's Medicare savings, and then things get foggy due to the lack of details.
The Obama campaign has a useful compilation of information from the AARP, the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Hospital Association on Mitt Romney's plan for Medicare (i.e. to end Medicare as we know it, through a voucher program).
10:07 AM PT: "Remember the prescription drug donut hole" (h/t blueyescryinintherain)