Couple great video’s out about the Ryan pick and Romney/Ryan team:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y6hYhL8yAs[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Add2VY0FM7U[/youtube]
Meanwhile the Obama camp tells outright lies, as usual:
“[Ryan’s] plan also would end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors,”
The latest version of the Ryan Medicare reform plan allows future retirees use a premium support payment to buy private insurance or buy into traditional Medicare–a proposal endorsed by Democratic senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. Medicare will end “as we know it” under Obama’s plan of rationing and/or bankruptcy. But the most dishonest part of Messina’s statement is that it leaves the impression that the Ryan plan would affect current seniors. That is not true. Ryan’s Medicare reform doesn’t affect current seniors or those 10 years away from retirement.
Ryan justifies the delayed implementation of the plan because retirees or those near retirement have planned their lives around Medicare in its current form, and those under 55 will have more time to plan for some modest changes necessary to avert a fiscal crisis. Delayed implementation is also what makes Ryan’s plan politically viable. Voters 55 and over won’t be affected at all, so they really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. And the vast majority of voters under the age of 55 don’t believe big entitlement programs will even be around to pay them a benefit when they retire, as this Gallup poll on Social Security revealed.
While 69% of Americans age 55 and older think they will receive Social Security benefits, a mere 22% of 18- to 34-year-olds and 32% of 35- to 54-year-olds think the program will even be around when they retire. Changes to Medicare–even the modest changes Ryan and Romney favor–might spook current beneficiaries or those close to retirement, but it’s hard to imagine why younger voters would vote against a candidate for altering a program from which they don’t expect to benefit. If anything, Ryan’s plan offers the under-55 crowd the best hope that these programs will still be functioning when they reach retirement.
John McCormack then asks why are journalists not reporting on these lies?
the job of journalists is to provide context that politicians leave out. And when it comes to Medicare reform, the press does a pretty shoddy job of providing essential context that would allow an adult conversation about how the country can avert a fiscal crisis. See, for example, the New York Times report on Romney’s vice presidential announcement. Reporters Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny describe Ryan as “an advocate of reshaping the Medicare program of health insurance for retirees.”
No, Ryan is not in favor of reshaping Medicare “for retirees”–he wants to reshape it for Americans who are 55 years old and younger. It shouldn’t be too difficult to mention the very basic fact about which Americans would actually be affected by the Romney Ryan plan. But the word “Medicare” appears five times in the New York Times report, and not once does the report explain that Ryan’s reform takes effect for new retirees starting in 2023.
It shouldn’t be too difficult, but they won’t. They weakly called out Obama on his ‘Romney murdered my wife’ baloney…and it remains to be seen if they will even attempt to call them out on this latest lie.
I’m not holding my breath and neither should the Romney/Ryan campaign. They need to fight it themselves and they have the very best person for the job to do just that. Paul Ryan.
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