Show, Don’t Tell: How to Explain Obama’s Medicare Cuts

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Deroy Murdock @ The Corner:

The American Right seems to be doing a pretty good job of explaining how President Obama and Congressional Democrats looted $716 billion from Medicare to finance Obamacare, as I detailed on NRO yesterday. For the first time in memory, Democrats are on the defensive on Medicare.

Still, if handled badly, this complex issue could put Adderall-fueled college students to sleep. Visuals and graphics that clearly illustrate the Democrats’ theft of Granny’s healthcare money are priceless. They should be deployed immediately and as widely as possible.

The best, by far, is the above headline, which appeared atop the print version of Sarah Kliff’s excellent article on this topic. “Romney’s right,” read last Tuesday’s WashingtonPost.com headline. “Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion.”

This headline graphic, conveniently enough, looks like a bumper sticker. Maybe some enterprising supporter of medical freedom will turn these into bumper stickers and hand them to seniors in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin. It also helps that the source on this headline is neither Ann Coulter nor Rush Limbaugh. None other than America’s center-left, Nixon-ousting paper of record declared that Obama, in fact, chopped Medicare by $716 billion. This is gold, and conservative/free-market activists should use it to pin this issue on the donkeys.

The second graphic, above, cites the Congressional Budget Office as the source for the $716 billion in cuts. It also gives July 24, 2012, as the date for this information. (This is when CBO’s Douglas W. Elmendorf wrote House Speaker John Boehner with this news.) This graphic shows an empty wheelchair, which recalls the disgusting,reprehensible ad that Democrats produced showing a Paul Ryan look-alike murdering a sweet old lady by throwing her from a cliff. This graphic slightly evens the score by showing who actually has weakened Granny’s health program.

The third graphic is from the New York Post. It shows how in what would constitute criminal fraud in the private sector, Obama simultaneously applies the same funds to Medicare and to Obamacare.

“So,” Congressman John Shimkus (R., Ill.) asked Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a House hearing on March 3, 2011, “are you using it [this money] to save Medicare, or are you using it to fund health-care reform? Which one?”

Secretary Sebelius confessed: “Both.”

“So,” Shimkus replied, “you’re double-counting.”

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Of course, Ryan’s budget proposals include the same $700 billion+ Medicare program spending reductions. The Ryan budget shifts the savings to the deficit reduction column, then essentially wipes them out by adding a trillion or so to the Defense budget. Obama instead utilizes the reduction to expand health insurance coverage to people who otherwise wouldn’t have any. So, you have the same reduced program expenditures either way. What it comes down to is what’s done with the money: Defense or Health Care. In neither case are the Medicare spending reductions actually used to reduce the federal deficit.

“Here’s your voucher. You’ll be pleased to know the we used the money we saved to blow something up somewhere. Have a nice day.”

@Greg: I guess you will never be able to follow a simple thread even when the Washington Post is concerned. You poor sod!