The presidential campaign is overflowing with claims from both sides designed to scare seniors into thinking Medicare is being gutted or about to end altogether. Lost in the flurry of attack ads and political messaging is a policy debate on how best to reduce the growth of Medicare spending, a common goal of both campaigns. If all voters know …
Both sides are playing loose with the facts in a couple of new TV ads. As FactCheck.org Deputy Director Eugene Kiely explains on WCBS radio, a pro-Romney super PAC takes President Obama’s comment about his second-term economic plan out of context, and an Obama TV ad provides false information about Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan.
Read more about both ads in our Aug. 13 item “Pro-Romney Super PAC Twists Obama’s Words” and our Aug. 14 item,
Now that Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney’s running mate, the claims about Ryan’s Medicare plan are flying. We give the details on what the plan will do, and debunk Democratic claims that it would raise seniors’ costs by $6,000. That pertains to an outdated plan.
See “Outdated Attacks on Ryan” (Aug. 14) for more on misleading claims about his past proposals.
The Obama campaign points to old proposals by Rep. Paul Ryan in saying that Mitt Romney would pay “less than 1 percent in taxes” under Ryan’s plan and that seniors would pay $6,000 more for Medicare. Ryan’s 2010 budget proposal would have eliminated capital gains and dividend taxes — which were indeed the bulk of Romney’s tax burden for 2010 — but Ryan dropped that specific measure from subsequent budgets. The Medicare claim, too, pertains to a less generous plan Ryan released last year,
Democrats are still hammering an old, and since replaced, GOP proposal, claiming it would “end Medicare,” and cost seniors $6,000 more a year for their health care. The newest Republican budget, proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, keeps traditional Medicare — unlike his plan from 2011 — and the increased cost claim is no longer applicable to it.
The latest string of “end Medicare” claims comes from the liberal Patriot Majority, a 501(c)(4), a nonprofit advocacy group,
A long-running chain email claims that Medicare premiums are going to shoot up to $247 per month in 2014 because of the health care law. That’s not true no matter how many times this email is forwarded.
See our April 30 Ask FactCheck — “Realtors, the 3.8% ‘Sales Tax’ and $247 Medicare Premiums” — for more.
The president got a key point wrong when he attacked Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare.
Read more about Obama’s claims in “Fall Preview: Obama vs. Romney (and Ryan),” April 6.
The Obama campaign depends on some false or dubious assumptions in its “Life of Julia” slide show. The infographic depicts a fictional woman whose life from age 3 to 67 is better under the president’s policies than under those of Republican Mitt Romney. But in reality …
In tweets to her followers, Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley claims her Republican opponent for U.S. Senate voted to “kill Medicare” and to “effectively ban contraception.” Both statements are untrue.
Sen. Dean Heller supported failed Republican legislation that would have substantially changed Medicare — in 2022 — to a program that subsidizes private insurance plans for seniors. But the entitlement would not have ended. Heller also voted for the so-called “Blunt amendment,” which would have allowed an employer to deny coverage of specific items or services contrary to the employer’s religious beliefs or moral convictions.
Can the “Lie of the Year” still be used to defeat Republicans? Democrats hope so, and a super PAC is using an Iowa congressional race to retest the claim that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare.” But we find the Iowa ads to be little improved from last year, when …