Romney/Ryan cuts to senior's health care

You know that lie Romney told about President Obama...

Oops, I guess I'll have to be more specific than that.

This time I'm talking about the one where he says that Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare when in reality Obamacare extended its solvency for an additional 8 years - all while closing the prescription drug donut hole and adding free preventative services. Yeah, that one.

In trying to sell that particular lie, both Romney and Ryan have promised over and over again that they won't touch Medicare for anyone 55 and older and that their plan ensures Medicare's solvency indefinitely into the future.

All those lies caught up to Romney's spokesperson Ed Gillespie yesterday when Chris Wallace - yeah, the same Chris Wallace who works for Fox News - asked some tough questions.

Here's how it all comes down. If Romney repeals ObamaCare - as he's promised to do - that means that Medicare starts to go insolvent in 2016. But Ryan's plan to voucherize Medicare (which they claim will make it solvent) doesn't start until 2023. That's so that they can make this promise to people 55 and up that they won't touch their Medicare.

Wallace picked up on that and asked Gillespie how Romney/Ryan would keep Medicare solvent during those intervening 7 years from 2016-2023.

Gillespie's answer revealed yet another lie.

Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing Medicare eligibility in line with the Social Security retirement age.

Oh...so for those of us 55 and older there WILL be changes to our Medicare. We won't be eligible until we're 66 or 67. For those of us currently in the midst of planning our retirement - that might be helpful to know.

The other thing not many people are talking about is the $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid in Ryan's budget that would start next year. Right now over 6 million seniors rely on Medicaid to pay for their nursing home care. Those cuts amount to one third of Medicaid's projected spending over the next 10 years.

Sure, Ryan weasels out of all that by block granting Medicaid to the states so that they have to decide whether to deny health care to children, the disabled or seniors. But estimates are that - as a result - 14 million people will lose their health care and a significant portion of them will be seniors.