Rachel Maddow KILLS The Romney/Ryan MEDICARE LIE Dead In its Tracks

[Segami]

Rachel Maddow delivered a quick knock out punch to the Republican lie that Mitt Romney doesn’t support Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher plan on Meet The Press.

Transcript via Meet The Press:

RICH LOWRY: –Republicans should go on offense on Medicare, because the president, as part of Obamacare, passed $700 billion in cuts in Medicare. And Romney wants to repeal Obamacare, including those cuts.

RACHEL MADDOW: Wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on.

RICH LOWRY: So it’s–

RICH LOWRY:–so at the top– hold on. So at the top of a ticket Romney versus Obama, there’s only one of those guys who wants any cuts affecting current seniors.

RACHEL MADDOW: Wait, wait. There’s–

RICH LOWRY: That’s not Mitt Romney.

RACHEL MADDOW : -Romney versus Ryan then. The Ryan plan keeps the Obama cuts for Medicare.

RICH LOWRY: The Ryan plan–

RACHEL MADDOW: So which one is it?

RICH LOWRY: –does.

RACHEL MADDOW:The Romney or Ryan plan?

RICH LOWRY: The Ryan plan does mostly as a matter of just preserving the CDO baseline. But the top to the ticket is Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wants to repeal those cuts. And the fact is, Rachel–

RACHEL MADDOW: Wait, that’s amazing.

RICH LOWRY: The fact is, Rachel–

RACHEL MADDOW: –Romney versus Ryan–

RICH LOWRY: If the Republicans–

RACHEL MADDOW: –on Medicare.

RICH LOWRY: –were proposing–

RACHEL MADDOW: That’s going to be awkward.

RICH LOWRY: –$700 billion. Had passed $700 billion in Medicare cuts, you’d be savaging–

RACHEL MADDOW: Wait–

RICH LOWRY: –that president for their brutality–

RACHEL MADDOW: So what–

RICH LOWRY: –to seniors.

RACHEL MADDOW: –but you’re saying–

RICH LOWRY: And that is–

RACHEL MADDOW: Wait–

RICH LOWRY: –Barack Obama.

RACHEL MADDOW: Is Romney running on the Ryan plan or not? Is Romney accepting–

RICH LOWRY: He’s running on–

RACHEL MADDOW: He said that (UNINTEL) he–

RICH LOWRY: –his own version of those ideas.

RACHEL MADDOW: That’s amazing. Paul Ryan accepted the exact same cuts.

See how easy that was? Rachel Maddow derailed Lowry in a matter of seconds on Medicare. As soon as she spotted the inconsistency in Lowry’s talking point, Maddow pounced and it was all over for Rich Lowry. As Maddow expertly revealed Republicans have to keep the conversation on Medicare superficial, because their whole talking point falls apart as soon as it is scrutinized in the slightest.



So Republicans are going to try to sell America on the idea that the Medicare privatization plan that Romney endorsed isn’t really Romney’s plan? That unpopular thing about the vouchers? That’s all Paul Ryan. Not us, no sir. Mitt Romney would never ever implement the plan that he endorsed and urged the Senate to pass. That is seriously going to be the Republican strategy on Paul Ryan’s Medicare voucher plan.




cont'


http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-kills-romneyryan-medicare-lie-dead-tracks.html

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[hedgehog]

1. Obama's so-called "cuts to Medicare" were reforms to

eliminate WASTE, FRAUD & ABUSE!

Sorry for shouting, but it seems every few weeks I see a story buried in the B section about another crook taken down for Medicare fraud.

[freshwest]

3. +1,000

[Segami]

5. No, go ahead and SHOUT because I ALSO read the same such news and it would seem to be occurring with

Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 10:35 PM - Edit history (1)

more frequency than I can recall. It really seems that way.

[vaberella]

6. Yeah. But even some Dems don't get that. n/t

[jillan]

13. And it was 500 billion - now the repugs are saying it was 700 billion and NO ONE IS SAYING A FUCKING

WORD -

Sorry - they have me yelling too!

[nanabugg]

15. Yeah, mostly the doctors, and insurers, and therapists who are in the 1% and who vote GOPnt

[cleduc]

2. Further to this,

it came out in the Ryan Obama video discussion of healthcare that these "cuts" to Medicare were the 15% the government was paying to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage (where they were effectively taking out the middle man like they did with student loans because they found no value added) and improvements in dealing with fraud. If anything, the result of the change was an improvement (by closing some doughnut holes with some of the savings) in Medicare services - no cuts in the Medicare services people get.

And that's the bigger reason why it survived Ryan's budget.

The howling is based upon a false equivalency = that because Obama found and cleaned up some poorly spent money in Medicare, the GOP are punishing him for that by portraying the reduction in money as if he degraded Medicare coverage - which again, is blatantly false.

Obama was backed up by the OMB on that.

As well, the OMB found that the changes from Obamacare increased the solvency of Medicare by 8 years. That's another point Romney is trying to make (lie about) - that he's riding in on his white horse to save Medicare when the first thing he'll do by killing Obamacare is reduce it's solvency by eight years.

It seems the GOP are having trouble making any significant points in this campaign without lying.

[thatsrhetoric]

7. Get real for a second

Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 11:49 PM - Edit history (1)

Someone is being brainwashed by their own party's rhetoric.

Obama's Healthcare cuts just shift the burden to the states at a time when they can't bear anymore of a fiscal load. That's the reality. As Democrats, we need to at least be honest with ourselves. If the states don't comply, they risk forfeiting even more Federal Funding. Its a mess. About half the states already made it clear they simply wont be able to comply. So at a time when state and local governments are being forced to lay workers off and reform pensions, benefits, etc, Obama through more responsibility on their shoulders. It blows my mind that people wont even recognize the simple facts. You can say it doesn't degrade coverage, you're missing the bigger picture. HE CUT MEDICARE!

"As well, the OMB found that the changes from Obamacare increased the solvency of Medicare by 8 years. That's another point Romney is trying to make (lie about) - that he's riding in on his white horse to save Medicare when the first thing he'll do by killing Obamacare is reduce it's solvency by eight years"

You realize that you're justifying the cut the same way the Republican Party does, right? So when Obama wants to extend the Solvency of a program, its all good, but if its a Republican, its draconian. Rachel Maddow is a pundit, just like Oreily and Hannity, I think more Democrats need to realize that.

The bottom line is, we're scrutinizing the Ryan plan for the cuts, when we really should be expressing our disgust for cuts that have actually occurred!!!! I always thought that actions spoke louder than words, and in this case, we're getting hung up on the words and rhetoric of the Ryan plan, instead of taking note of the actions that Obama has already taken. Wake up people, MSNBC is just as bad as Fox, so change the channel once in a while.

If you think she won the argument, you obviously didn't see the part where she had no answer and started turning red. Why couldnt she answer it? Maybe he wasn't talking loud enough or should've repeated it again, huh? When she asked him questions directly, he respectfully gave her an answer. When he asked her, she deflected and said she wasn't running for president, lol. Well neither is he, but she still asked him, right?

Just because we support Obama, doesn't mean we have to turn HIS mistakes into successes, leave that to the pundits.

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. Thank you for your concern. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

21. Er, what?

Is this your first visit to the internet, or do you make these accusations on every site you visit?

[thatsrhetoric]

22. ? :(

I was responding to the phrase "what is Willard Hiding". Not sure how you didn't connect the dots there.

[Ruby the Liberal]

25. My sig line?

It refers to Willard Romney's taxes. Not sure what triggered you on that, but yeah - I'm standing in the line of people who want to see them.

Is your name Willard or something?

[SunSeeker]

11. Wow, you joined DU so you could post that?

How does cutting fraud and getting rid of the Medicare Advantage middleman waste amount to cutting benefits or "shifting the burden to the states"?

And WTF video did you watch? I watched the whole thing and at no time does Rachel have "no answer and started turning red." What was the question she had no answer to, pray tell?

[Tanuki]

12. You seem to be confusing Medicare with Medicaid.

What is it about the cuts to Medicare that you think shift the burden to the states?

[jillan]

14. I have a serious question for you -

were you paid to join DU, or did you just decide to come here on your own.

And another question - do you like pizza?

[creeksneakers2]

17. Isn't Medicare paid 100% by the federal government?

Isn't it Medicaid that the states pay a share of? Ryan cuts that drastically.

It's true that Obama cut Medicare. The GOP wants to cut if way more than that. And Obama's cuts weren't directly on beneficiaries, where the GOP cuts would be. For millions of people, they'd mean no health insurance at all.

[BlueStreak]

27. NO!!!!!!!!!! Medicare is paid by premiums that are deducted from our paychecks every week

It is an insurance program. Ryan and Romney better keep their greedy little fingers off these programs. WE PAID FOR THEM.

[EC]

20. Completely wrong.

You're thinking of Medicaid and it doesn't require the states to pay more, in fact it DECREASES the cost of Medicaid to the states by having the Fed pick up MORE of the tab. And the states that have said they will not comply - will, it's to their benefit to do it. You're a bit mixed up.

[cleduc]

23. Ryan floated your concerns at the start of this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=8m33s&v=teEpm9_TJdQ

Obama responds around the 15 minute mark.

The government pays Medicare advantage insurance companies 15% of Medicare Advantage costs for them to handle it. A big chunk of these savings were from getting rid of that middleman slice to the insurance companies. Obama asked for and nobody stood up that his reasoning on Medicare Advantage was wrong in the video that I noticed. Another chunk of medicare savings was for things they'd done to reduce medicare fraud - which also has no compromise on the care of people under Medicare. They spent some of those savings from those tow things on closing some "donut holes". My impression from that was that they were spending less on insurance companies and fraud while providing a better service. If I'm wrong on that and maybe I've missed soemthing, can you explain specifically where?

Bloomberg revealed that in this article:

Medicare Scare Ad Makes False Claim Of Cuts For Seniors
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/medicare-scare-ad-makes-false-claim-of-cuts-for-seniors.html

It’s also wrong, according to a Republican health-care expert and independent analysts.
“There are no reductions in the Medicare benefits promised in law,” said Gail Wilensky, who served as administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare under President George H.W. Bush and is a senior fellow at Project Hope, a health-research organization in Virginia.

[NashvilleLefty]

24. They were NOT cuts, they were savings.

And most of the savings came from cutting the Medicare Advantage plan which was a major source of FRAUD.

[JDPriestly]

26. Republicans are going to have a very hard time selling the Ryan

Medicare plan. Coupons are a horrible idea.

Republicans seem to have forgotten how forgetful and tired very elderly people can be.

They are naive to think that, on top of everything else, very elderly people are going to want to deal with coupons and tracking how much they have spent on medical costs and whether they have spent too many of their Medicare coupons.

The Ryan plan will terrify a large number of seniors.

It appears to be the brainchild of a very young person who really does not understand what seniors need and want in their lives. Possibly of someone who does not know what it is to live solely on Social Security benefits in this day and age.

Another complicated program and financial limitations like the ones Ryan is suggesting are absolutely not what the average person getting by on Social Security wants.

Ryan's plan would cause nothing but anxiety for most seniors.

Republicans have goofed big on this one.

[n2doc]

4. Rmoney said he supports the vouchers on 60 minutes

Calls it 'choice'. Except e on't have the choice to stick with the present system. No choice in that.

[SHRED]

9. Was he asked if he supports a voucher system for Medicare?

This direct question should and must be asked.

[Honeycombe8]

10. What matters most is which person @ top of ticket cuts Medicare.

Ryan's plan is important in what it reflects on his thinking and what he wants to do. But he's 2nd on a ticket.

What matters most is: Does Romney support the cuts? And did Obama really cut $700 billion from Medicare? That's the first I've heard of that, when I heard it on TV this weekend.

In fact, I looked that up months ago on a fact thing on AARP. I was sure it said that there hadn't been cuts, as such, but that certain parts had been cut, while other parts had been added to. It gave the impression that the $ had just been shifted around.

[julian09]

28. Ryans job is going to funerals

if Rmoney kills Obamacare he will have many to go to.

[jillan]

16. And that was all the time David Gregory gave her. The next time she tried to talk -

he interrupted her... and that was that.

It was sickening to watch.

[B Calm]

18. She kicked ass this morning!