Having picked the architect of the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it as his running mate, Mitt Romney and his “I am rubber, you’re glue” campaign is now trying to paint President Obama as the real threat to seniors’ health care and economic security.
The most astounding part of Romney’s attack is that he accuses the president of cutting Medicare by more than $700 billion despite the fact that the exact same Medicare savings are included in the Romney-Ryan budget, which Mitt Romney has eagerly embraced, said he would sign, and whose architect is now his running mate. The real scandal is that while Obamacare reinvests these savings back into Medicare to make it stronger, offer seniors new benefits, and close the prescription drug donut hole, the Romney-Ryan budget steals that same $700 billion and uses it pay for new tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and huge corporations.
And worst of all, Romney and Ryan want to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program that shifts costs to seniors. Under their original plan, seniors will pay about $6,000 a year more for their health care so millionaires can pay even less in taxes. Under a different version of their plan to end Medicare, seniors are instead stuck with steep premium increases. Either way, seniors will pay a steep price for Romney and Ryan’s huge new tax breaks for the wealthiest.
Read the full report with info graphics on thinkprogress.org
