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Obama's False Medicare Claim

 

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Obama: I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.

The ad quotes the Wall Street Journal as saying McCain would pay for his health care plan with "major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid," which the ad says would total $882 billion from Medicare alone, "requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility, or both."

Obama elaborated on the theme Oct. 18 in a stump speech in St. Louis, Mo., claiming flatly that seniors would face major medical hardships under McCain:

Obama, Oct. 18: But it turns out, Senator McCain would pay for part of his plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare -$882 billion worth. Under his plan, if you count on Medicare, you would have fewer places to get care, and less freedom to choose your doctors. You'll pay more for your drugs, receive fewer services, and get lower quality care.

Update, Oct. 21: A second and even more misleading Obama ad begins: "How will your golden years turn out?" It states flatly that McCain's plan would mean a 22 percent cut in benefits, higher premiums, higher co-pays, and more expensive prescription drugs, and claims that both nursing home care and a patient's choice of doctor could be affected.

As the narrator says that McCain's plan "means a 22 percent cut in benefits," the ad displays a footnote citing an Oct. 6 Wall Street Journal story as its authority.

But, in fact, the Journal story makes no mention of any 22 percent reduction, or any reduction at all. To the contrary, the story's only mention of what might happen to benefits is a quote from McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin promising to maintain "the benefit package that has been promised." The story quotes him as saying "savings" would come from eliminating Medicare fraud and by reforming payment policies to lower the overall cost of care.

But in fact, McCain has never proposed to cut Medicare benefits, or Medicaid benefits either. Obama's claim is based on a false reading of a single Wall Street Journal story, amplified by a one-sided, partisan analysis that piles speculation atop misinterpretation. The Journal story in turn was based on an interview with McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin. He said flatly in a conference call with reporters after the ad was released, "No service is being reduced. Every beneficiary will in the future receive exactly the benefits that they have been promised from the beginning."

Twisting Facts to Scare Seniors
Here's how Democrats cooked up their bogus $882 billion claim.

On Oct. 6, the Journal ran a story saying that McCain planned to pay for his health care plan "in part" through reduced Medicare and Medicaid spending, quoting Holtz-Eakin as its authority. The Journal characterizes these reductions as both "cuts" and "savings." Importantly, Holtz-Eakin did not say that any benefits would be cut, and the one direct quote from him in the article makes clear that he's talking about economies:

Wall Street Journal, Oct. 6: Mr. Holtz-Eakin said the Medicare and Medicaid changes would improve the programs and eliminate fraud, but he didn't detail where the cuts would come from. "It's about giving them the benefit package that has been promised to them by law at lower cost," he said.

Holtz-Eakin complains that the Journal story was "a terrible characterization" of McCain's intentions, but even so it clearly quoted him as saying McCain planned on "giving [Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries] the benefit package that has been promised."

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: Krohn @ 11/02/2008 11:25:14 PM

    The Wall Street crisis was planned the night of Obama's meeting at Bill Ayres home to put Obama in The White House. Together they put a beautiful plan into place.

    This Strategy was first elucidated in the 1966 issue of 'The Nation' Magazine by a pair of radical Socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

    David Horowitz summarizes it as:

    "The strategy of forcing political change through an orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of Capitalism by overloading the Government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
    unquote

    Obama begin with ACORN by funneling millions into their organization. He then trained ACORN to stage protests in banks to force them to issue risky loans or they would be threatened to face racial charges. ACORN was trained to intimidate financial institutions into giving ???Ninja??? loans to people with NO assets, NO job and NO income, who couldn???t afford these loans.

    That caused the housing bubble two years ago it was by ACORN's actions they were able to destroy our credit system.

    As this played out, D-Barney Frank and D-Chris Dodd were able to cover up the millions of improvident loans to these bad risky house buyers. And Barney Frank and his chums successfully were able to block all of President Bush's attempts to put a rein on this problem.

    So Fannie & Freddie was forced to purchase all these failed subprime mortgages.

    Then both Frank and Dodd denied that there were any problems, and refused the Bush Admin. requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the 'minute they failed'.

    Democrats then blamed Bush saying it happened on his watch knowing it would hurt the Republican Party in the election setting it up that Barack Obama could use this to his advantage.

    Karl Marx once compared a Revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface.

    Barack Obama is that Marxist mole !

  • Posted By: Mwanga @ 10/31/2008 1:25:04 PM

    Why do not you tell us all the untrue(s) that have been said by both candidates if you are really neutral?
    You want us to believe that one candidate is a saint and the other is a liar? We all know what political games, campaigning adds and speeches are about.

  • Posted By: Bill Hardin Jr @ 10/28/2008 9:22:33 AM

    How long are we going to stand for liberal lies ? I am 71 years old and I live in a very liberal county in Illinois. I see Cook county {Chicago} running the state and now trying to run the country. Liberal politics are basically based on class warfare. The only higher being I believe in is Jesus. If nobama gets in the people are going to lose our freedoms one by one. Liberals use lies and inuendo to get what they want. ALL OF YOUR MONEY

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A new ad goes too far when it says Medicare will be "bankrupt" in eight years.