Election after election in the past the Democrats could, and most often did, bring out their mediscare tactics, accusing the GOP of wanting to take medicare away from vulnerable seniors. Many times their shameless scare tactics worked to move the senior vote in their column and provide them their margins of victory.
So, when Governor Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as his VP running mate, some Democrats reacted with glee. They thought because congressman Ryan courageously was willing to tackle the pending insolvency of medicare with real reforms, they would be able to tie Mitt Romney to those reforms and they could scare seniors away from the GOP ticket. They may have been laughing when Romney made the pick, but I don’t think they are laughing now. That is because, not only are Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan not running away from the issue in a defensive mode, they are addressing it head on in an attack mode against president Obama.
Brilliantly, the Romney/Ryan team is attacking the president over medicare on two fronts. They are pointing out that it is president Obama who is taking out over $700 billion dollars out of medicare over the next 10 years. Second, they are pointing out that this money is being taken out to pay for the uninsured in ObamaCare. So, they are hitting Obama as the one who is the only one who is taking money away from the seniors in their medicare, and even worse he is using that money to pay for the highly unpopular ObamaCare program.
This line of attack by Romney and Ryan [of Obama stealing $700 billion from Medicare] has also done one other thing. President Obama thought he had neutralized Romney from bringing up his unpopular ObamaCare program because Mitt Romney had a similar program in Massachusetts. But now with this line of attack by the GOP, Governor Romney can show that “RomneyCare” was nothing like ObamaCare as it didn’t steal Medicare funds to pay for the Massachusetts health care program like Obama has done to pay for his. So, the Democrats now know that they can forget about Mitt Romney being fearful of bringing up ObamaCare. With Paul Ryan on the team, they will do so, and do so every chance they give.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are on the attack on Medicare. When have you ever seen this before by the GOP in American political history. I would submit, never. Now they can start each discussion to seniors by letting them know it is president Obama who is stealing money from medicare. And that money will be restored to Medicare only with the election of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
The GOP candidates will point out in every talk that [in their plan] all current seniors on medicare, plus anyone 55 or older, will have no changes in their medicare benefits or plans. None! Plus, they will point out that when Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are elected, no more will seniors have to worry about an unelected rationing board determining if they get the care they need.
One other point they can, and I hope they will bring up to seniors. They can tell seniors that president Obama is counting on the fact that you are selfish and only care about your benefits and aren’t worried about your grand children and great grand children. Paul Ryan could say, ‘Mitt and I know better. We know seniors care deeply about their grandchildren and want to see the reforms made to ensure that medicare is there for them when they need it.’
Yes, the mediscare tactics of the Democrats have worked in the past, but they didn’t work in 2010 and they certainly won’t work in 2012. Who ‘woulda thunk’ it? The GOP is now attacking the Democrats on Medicare. I for one love this change.
