Monday morning, James Pethokoukis reiterated three key facts about Paul Ryan's approach to saving Medicare that fellow AEI writer Andrew Biggs' "most excellent post" highlighted as essential in not only understanding Ryan's plan, but also cutting through the deceit of the Left:
1. No one over the age of 55 would be affected in any way.
2. Traditional Medicare fee-for-service would remain available for all. “Premium support”—that is, government funding of private insurance plans chosen by individuals—is an option for those who choose it. No senior would be forced out of the traditional Medicare program against his will.
3. Overall funding for Medicare under the Ryan-Wyden plan is scheduled to grow at the same rate as under President Obama’s proposals. Is this “gutting Medicare” and “ending Medicare as we know it”? In reality, it’s the market giving seniors cheaper, higher quality choices they can take if they wish, with the traditional program remaining an option.
Springboarding from that last point, Yuval Levin writes about the facts and fallacy between Ryan's approach and Obama's...
It’s at least a bit odd for Democrats who say Ryan is the devil to defend President Obama’s raid on Medicare by saying Paul Ryan does the same thing — and what’s more, it’s not true. The Ryan budget puts those $700 billion into the Medicare trust fund, to shore up the program’s future and reduce the deficit, rather than spending the money on yet another new entitlement. And Mitt Romney proposes not to make those Obamacare cuts in the first place — keeping the money in Medicare’s operating budget and so leaving the program simply as it is for today’s seniors and starting his premium-support reform for younger Americans when they retire, beginning a decade from now. Both undo Obama’s raid on Medicare, and both support a plan to save Medicare from bankruptcy in the years ahead.
Ryan's ideas have vastly moved further towards actually saving the program for seniors than Obama has even attempted. I mean, does taking $700 billion out of Medicare to create a new signature entitlement sound like a plan for Medicare solvency? Far from it.
I've also heard the 2024 year tossed around as the date in which Medicare's solvency has been extended until...but even that doesn't hold up, because that's a stipulation of Obamacare's double-counting gimmick. Exclude that, and according to the Medicare Trustees, Medicare will go broke in 2016. And Medicare’s own Actuary, Richard Foster, says the program’s bankruptcy could come even sooner than that!
So, again, what's Obama done about it? Nothing. Just another broken campaign promise from the first time around (and God Willing, the last). But don't take my word for it. Listen to it from his own mouth...
So who does it sound like is radically destroying Medicare as we know it? It's certainly NOT Paul Ryan. That culprit seems reserved for President Barack Obama himself and his reckless ideological policies. But the media will do their damnedest to obfuscate further the liberal narrative by leaving out particular details, like this selective edit LEFT OUT from Romney & Ryan's first co-interview with 60 Minutes...
Facts are stubborn things...when you're allowed to hear them, that is.
ADDENDUM: CNN's gone Obama or bust with Soledad's continued $700B denial and lies from yesterday and today. Sununu's right about one thing: “Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this!”
