Is Romney-Ryan Campaign Duping Seniors on Medicare?

By Scott Galupo • August 28, 2012, 7:34 AM

Eugene Robinson ends his Washington Post column thusly: “Republicans may tell themselves that the GOP is the party of Medicare. But I doubt seniors will be convinced.” Josh Marshall, editor of the liberal blog Talking Points Memo, isn’t so sure. He frets:

Yesterday I asked how many people knew that a Romney victory would likely lead to Medicare becoming a voucher program. I think we have our answer. Two polls have come out over the last 24 hours showing the Romney-Ryan ticket either tied or ahead of Obama-Biden on the issue of Medicare.

Yet another poll — conducted by Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News in the swing states Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin — found that 6 out of 10 likely voters trust President Obama to handle Medicare; fewer than a third favored the Romney-Ryan premium-support proposal.

Faced with such mixed data samples, I can only fall back on, well, anecdotal evidence. My family and I have spent much of this month in and out of my parents’ 55-and-over community near the southern New Jersey shore. My impressions are hardly scientific samples, but I’ll share them with you anyway. Poolside, I’ve heard a number of seniors talking about the presidential race, and specifically about Medicare. Many of them (to my ears) are North Jerseyite/New Yorkers who settled here after having cashed in on the Bush-era housing boom. This, while reclining in the safety net of single-payer health care. They’re well aware of what Romney and Ryan are proposing — and, more important, they’re aware that it won’t affect them.

This will sound harsh, but here goes. The brilliant cynicism of the Romney-Ryan Mediscare strategy is the bargain it strikes with the affluent white 55-and-over demographic — a critical segment of the GOP base this cycle. It says, “We won’t touch your benefits,” as it implies that Obama is taking those benefits and transferring them to his layabout black “base.”

This is “bold” stuff, all right — bold enough to make you bring up your breakfast.

Avik Roy, Yuval Levin, and co.: I hope you sleep well carrying water for this crew.

Posted in Election, Healthcare, Politics. Tagged Avik Roy, Eugene Robinson, Josh Marshall, Medicare, premium support, Yuval Levin.

15 Responses to Is Romney-Ryan Campaign Duping Seniors on Medicare?

Robert says:

August 28, 2012 at 9:18 am

This is pretty much the strategy the GOP has used to turn the area where I grew up–southeastern West Virginia–from blue to dark red in the last dozen or so years.

When I visit my parents it’s not uncommon to hear older members of their community say things like: “We are going to loose our Medicare and Social Security because those lazy, no good, people on welfare are too sorry to work.” They don’t come right out and say those black people on welfare, but the race of “these people” is implied.

Recently I’ve also started to notice this same line of reasoning being applied to the same-sex marriage issue. Apparently allowing same-sex couples to marry will somehow ultimately mean there are fewer benefits available for “normal people.”

And no, my comments here do not in any way imply that the people in West Virginia are stupid or bigoted. I’m merely recounting my personnel observations.
reflectionephemeral says:

August 28, 2012 at 9:22 am

In all fairness to Levin and Roy, everyone knows that the proposed cuts will never happen anyway.

We can be dead certain that Congress in 2022 will be every bit as attuned to the wants of that year’s seniors as was the GOP Congress that enacted Medicare Part D (and the Democratic Congress that closed the “donut hole” in Part D). So, sure, we could save money by converting Medicare into vouchers in ten years. And I could lose weight by cutting off my arm in September. Neither is going to happen.

The Bush tax cuts were claimed to have lower costs because they were to phase out in 2012; the Ryan-Romney savings are every bit as transparently illusory.

It’s what we should expect– it’s the same indifference to the deficit, and policy generally, that animated Paul Ryan and his Roy and Levin-style think-tank cheerleaders in the Bush era. From that link, the Heritage Foundation in 2001: “Under President Bush’s plan, an average family of four’s inflation-adjusted disposable income would increase by $4,544 in fiscal year (FY) 2011, and the national debt would effectively be paid off by FY 2010. The net tax revenue reduction, after accounting for the larger tax base that would result from higher employment and faster economic growth under the Bush plan, is $1.1 trillion from FY 2002 to FY 2011, 33.4 percent less than conventional static estimates.
The plan would save the entire Social Security surplus and increase personal savings while the federal government accumulated $1.8 trillion in uncommitted funds from FY 2008 to FY 2011, revenue that could be used to reform the Social Security and Medicare systems and reduce the payroll tax.”

So, Roy and Levin are perhaps doubly cynical, because they certainly know that the Romney-Ryan plan will never happen. It’s a talking point to promise today’s seniors the moon, and pretend to care about the deficit that Paul Ryan worked to create.
Victory over Eurasia says:

August 28, 2012 at 9:37 am

they are endeavoring the dupe the country on just about everything. It is extraordinary that their mendacity is going pretty much unchallenged by the MSM, but there is still a long way to go to the election.
exley says:

August 28, 2012 at 9:48 am

ya – but does the Romney/Ryan plan allow for the continuation of the medicaid part d donut hole to come back? will that hurt these seniors? I may be completly mis-informed and if so pleae set me straight (nicely tho ) … are there things re-introduced by a Romney/Ryan plan that in a round about way hurt these same seniors?
Joe the Plutocrat says:

August 28, 2012 at 10:09 am

@Robert, all due respect, and perhaps I would not use the word “stupid”, but if the previously good folks of WV are drinking the Kool-Aid; they have been… intellectually compromised. of course, as our host notes; it’s not just WV. so who is to blame; the smarmy, say anything politicos; or the intellectually compromised electorate that is buying what the snake oil purveyors are selling?
Charlieford says:

August 28, 2012 at 11:31 am

Thanks, reflection, that’s awesome.

Why is anyone talking about the Ryan “plan”? When I see a plan that only kicks in ten years out–two years beyond the hypothetical second Romney-Ryan administration–it’s safe to assume this is just an election-strategy distraction.
Fortunato says:

August 28, 2012 at 1:05 pm

Is it The American Conservative or The American Prospect? Sometimes I fail to see the difference.
Robert says:

August 28, 2012 at 1:08 pm

@Joe,

Who knows? I suspect it’s a bit of both.

As you can imagine, the area I grew up in is extremely poor; the average household income in my hometown is currently something on the order of $21,500. Thus a significant part of the population–especially the elderly–lives on the ragged edge of poverty. People in such a situation are easily manipulated, and it would seem the political class is all to willing to play to the role of manipulator. Yet there also seems to be a certain amount of what I would call “score settling” present in some of the rantings I’ve heard. A kind of, “We’ve had to keep quiet in the past, but no more.”
RinTX says:

August 28, 2012 at 3:55 pm

@Robert.

“the average household income in my hometown is currently something on the order of $21,500.”

That would mean that a lot of them are in that group of “Lucky Ducky’s” that pay no federal income tax. Do they realize that under Romney’s tax plan, their tax burden would go up?

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001628-Base-Broadening-Tax-Reform.pdf

Do they realize that every time Republicans talk about “broadening the tax base”, they mean raising the taxes of low-wage earners?
RinTX says:

August 28, 2012 at 4:14 pm

@exley,

Great question regrading the donut hole.

Romney/Ryan have pledged to repeal Obamacare. As far as I know, that would re-open the donut hole and would have an immediate effect on a lot of seniors. Is there any immediate provision in the Romney/Ryan plan that would close it again? I’m not aware of any.

The CBO analysis of Ryan’s plan stated:

“The proposal would repeal the provisions that created the Independent Payment
Advisory Board and that expanded subsidies for the “coverage gap” in Part D (a
range of spending in which many enrollees have to pay all of their drug costs,
sometimes called the doughnut hole).”

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-ryan_letter.pdf

(See page 10)
Kenneth Almquist says:

August 28, 2012 at 5:38 pm

The Romney/Ryan proposal won’t affect people over 55 directly, but once Medicare is eliminated for people under 55, it will be considerably easier to go after the program for people over 55.
Pingback: The American Conservative has Been Running Some Not Nuts Essays - Public Signals
Fran Macadam says:

August 28, 2012 at 9:47 pm

It no longer matters what the demographic wants – that’s important only at election-time in terms of talking points.

Both parties’ hearts post-election are in serving the interests of Wall Street. ObamaCare is a mandate to enrich their private insurance corporation wings.

Similarly, Mitt is on that side too – but using his own doublespeak to play to his voting base. The bottom line will be the same, even if the line items are slightly different.

But the voting base is only useful for getting elected and when there is no real choice in terms of policy other than favoring the uber-rich after elections are over, anyone and everyone can be safely thrown under the bus.

How many promises did Obama keep? I can’t count any – certainly none that I voted for him for.
John Wilson says:

August 28, 2012 at 11:01 pm

The Romney- Ryan Medicare proposal to leave it intact for 55+ electorate is a very smart strategy called divide an conquer. This method is used in business, military and technology (computer algorithms). Basically when you come across difficult problem you subdivide it into few (may) smaller problems which are easier to solve.

So, how does it apply to Romney- Ryan proposal for Medicare?

Let’s suppose Romney wins the 2012 election with Republican majority in, both House and Senate.
In this situation Medicare cuts are implemented – plus score of other cuts GOP is dreaming abut (essentially the whole Government except Pentagon and subsidies to GOP business friends) but does not want to talk about it before elections.

After implementing Medicare cuts all people who are on Medicare and have no chance ever getting it in future (they are too young) start putting pressure on politicians to cut Medicare spending (or eliminate it) for people who are currently on Medicare. Republicans will gladly oblige with this sort of task and Medicare is cut or completely eliminated. Unfortunately, this how the human nature works.

The next on the list of GOP “improvements” might be a Social Security (SS). Bush Administration had an idea of privatizing SS in 2006. I can see how well this would go during market crash like in 2000 and 2008; Goldman Sachs and other banks would love this idea.
Problem with SS is that Federal Government was borrowing SS surpluses from SS Trust Fund for last 40-45 years (issuing IOU) to supplement budgets (and despite it still having huge deficits) and now chickens come home to roost. Essentially what the Federal Government (both parties) did is a fraud – any company which did this sort of manipulation with pension fund would have their executives in jail.

When it comes to healthcare in USA the problem is that the services are very expansive and the insurance model is fragmented. The cost of healthcare services is increased by insane doctors liability rates and by inefficient handling of insurance claims (lack of electronic processing and different rules for every state and insurance company). The fragmented insurance model creates situation that goal of every insurance company is to insure young and healthy people. This makes sense to maximize profit, but unfortunately does not work for Americans – 50 millions uninsured. The successful insurance model is based on large pool of subscribers – some use services more than others. This kind of approach is used in Canada and works fairly well. Every Canadian citizen is insured and nobody ever declared bankruptcy because of medical mishap. If somebody is trying to scare you that you will wait for a long time before you have an x-ray or operation in case of emergency it’s a BS. The emergency cases get top priority and elective surgery has to wait (3 month). I know this – I lived there. This is a basic insurance (doctors, hospitals, list of covered procedures). On top of it one can buy or get it from employer additional health insurance which covers more plus, drug, dental and vision.
karin says:

October 28, 2012 at 10:40 pm

The Romney-Ryan plan and seniors

The donut hole is re-created – The elimination of ObamaCare will cost seniors thousands of dollars for prescription care in the “donut hole”
Free Preventive care is eliminated– Elimination of ObamaCare cuts free preventive care for seniors
Medicaid for seniors is cut – Romney/Ryan call for major cuts in Medicaid. While only 15% of seniors are on Medicaid, the majority of all nursing home residents are on Medicaid. What that says is that while they may not use it while they are healthy, once they end up in a nursing home most seniors will be dependent on Medicaid.
Medicare is at risk in 2016 – ObamaCare extended the self-sufficiency of Medicare by 8 years by lowering costs from providers who would be compensated by additional insured payments under ObamaCare. Paul Ryan made the cuts in his budget, but doesn’t enable the providers to get whole with additionally insured. The result will be that they will not be able to afford the Medicare cuts.
Keep these four basic points in mind when you talk to seniors about why they should be worried if Romney and Ryan get elected.