Debunking Republican LIES: Medicare has become a blend of corporate welfare and unlimited healthcar

unlimited healthcare services for seniors.

This observation helps mightily in debunking the demagogic lies with which Republicans saturated the airwaves to win the 2010 midterms, lies Romney and his surrogates are repeating now:

Romney on 60 Minutes yesterday: "Obama stole $716 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare."

Reince Priebus on MTP yesterday: "If any person in this entire debate has blood on their hands in regard to Medicare, it's Barack Obama. He's the one that's destroying Medicare."

The biggest differences between Republican and Democratic Medicare reform goals are in the proposed mixes of these two elements, corporate welfare and unlimited healthcare benefits for seniors.

George W. Bush added "Medicare Advantage" to traditional Medicare as an almost pure form of corporate welfare. President Obama's ACA pares back Medicare Advantage's overpayments to corporate providers for the same guaranteed benefits to seniors that now cost $700 billion less under traditional Medicare. (See below for snippets from a Republican health finance expert's Bloomberg interview on this point).

The ACA Medicare Advantage cut is in payments to providers, NOT in the healthcare benefit services guaranteed to seniors by Medicare law. It's essentially a cut in extra corporate profits extracted from Medicare thanks to a Bush-era corporate welfare program. By reducing overpayments to vendors but maintaining benefits to seniors, the ACA cuts actually STRENGTHEN guaranteed healthcare benefits to seniors.

But, in stark comparison, Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for the Future" simply terminates the unlimited healthcare services for seniors and keeps just the corporate welfare element of Medicare. Under Ryan's plan, corporate providers would get from the Federal government a certain amount of money for each senior. But seniors would have no guarantee of unlimited coverage for actual healthcare services. This is a crucial point that NEVER gets covered in big media, even on '60 Minutes' or on a Meet the Press roundtable with Rachel Maddow yesterday.

Below is a Bloomberg story quoting a Republican healthcare finance expert to this effect:

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION?

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From http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/medicare-scare-ad-makes-false-claim-of-cuts-for-seniors.html :

"Medicare Scare Ad Makes False Claim of Cuts for Seniors

By Heidi Przybyla - 2012-06-28T16:27:45Z

"Florida seniors will be living a 'nightmare' because Senator Bill Nelson voted for $500 billion in Medicare cuts, the anonymous voice warns in the most-aired advertisement in his re-election race -- a message repeated in similar spots targeting other Democrats across the country.

It's also wrong, according to a Republican health-care expert and independent analysts. 'There are no reductions in the Medicare benefits promised in law,' said Gail Wilensky, who served as administrator of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare under President George H.W. Bush and is a senior fellow at Project Hope, a health-research organization in Virginia. ...

President Barack Obama's 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ... the core of which was found constitutional today by the U.S. Supreme Court, ... slows the growth of Medicare payments to hospitals and other health providers. Seniors' benefits weren't reduced in the legislation. That hasn't deterred Republican-aligned groups such as Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from the benefit-cut assertion in campaign television commercials targeting the law ...

Romney Response

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also has been making the supposed cuts part of his campaign pitch. 'Obamacare cuts Medicare -- cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion,' Romney said in Washington in remarks responding to the court ruling. At issue is an estimated $555 billion in spending reductions in Medicare from 2011 to 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office, achieved primarily through slower payments to hospitals and premiums paid to Medicare Advantage providers. Republicans are assuming the payment reductions will lead insurance companies to scale back benefits above the basic Medicare package, said Wilensky, the ex-official under the first President Bush. ..."