Medicare reform

A new ad from the Romney campaign takes the Democrats' Medicare attacks on Paul Ryan head on. Watch the video below:

A new ad from the Montana GOP focuses on Republican Senate candidate Denny Rehberg's record of independence from Washington and his own party, and includes a criticism of Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare reforms, which Rehberg voted against in the House.

The bipartisan Medicare reform plan proposed by Republican House member Paul Ryan and Oregon senator Ron Wyden is dead. At least, that's the perception Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid may be trying to create.

At a campaign rally in Florida Monday evening, Mitt Romney told the crowd: "We will never go after Medicare and Social Security."

Mitt Romney had a strong performance Thursday night in the final debate before the January 3 Iowa caucuses. From Medicare reform to foreign policy to the economy, Romney provided mostly succinct answers within the mainstream of Republican ideas. And because he did not spend much time engaging his…

The New York Times reports:

Remember those ads with a Paul Ryan-lookalike rolling granny’s wheelchair off a cliff? Well, just a few short months later, the New York Times writes: 

In a USA Today op-ed on how he'd cut spending, Mitt Romney sketches out a plan to reform Medicare: 

Downplaying the role of the controversial Independent Patient Advisory Board (IPAB), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Affordable Care Act “leaves all final decisions” on changing Medicare payment costs in the hands of Congress. “IPAB is a backstop, a…

James Capretta has a must-read over at NRO: "Budget Danger Ahead: How Republicans could get snookered again." 

In a few months my wife and I will turn 65 years of age. I guess we’re the proverbial grandpa and grandma that our political leaders aim to protect. Our mailbox has been full lately with brochures describing the Medicare enrollment process, offering supplemental health coverage, and helpfully…

At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing today, two Medicare trustees, Charles Blahous and Robert Reischauer, testified about necessary cuts to Medicare's Hospital Insurance program (commonly known as Medicare Part A) once the trust fund runs out of money. According to the recently…

The 60 Plus Association, a conservative answer to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is out with a new ad in support of the Medicare reforms authored by House Budget chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). Watch below:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asks Americans whether they would be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate who "supports changing Medicare for those under 55 to a system where people choose their insurance from a list of private health plans and the government pays a fixed amount,…

Florida’s Mike Haridopolos, the current state senate president running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, doubled down today on his opposition to Medicare reforms in the 2012 House Republican budget proposal, saying that he would not want to see major reforms to the entitlement…

Staten Island Republican Michael Grimm doesn't seem spooked by the Democrats' campaign against Medicare. In an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box earlier today, he showed no sign of backing down on the plan he voted for:

A recent National Journal article misrepresents the effects of the proposed Medicare reforms in the House of Representatives on current seniors. House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has repeatedly noted that these proposed Medicare reforms — which would not go into effect until 2022 — would…

Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that Medicare reform would be a “defining issue” for his party’s plan to win back control of the House of Representatives next year. Speaking with reporters this morning, Israel said that the House…

Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on Face the Nation this past Sunday that if the House-passed Medicare reform is implemented, future beneficiaries could be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions: 

In June 2009, President Obama said, “Medicare and Medicaid are the single biggest drivers of the federal deficit and the federal debt by a huge margin.” Two years later, Paul Ryan and the House Republicans have advanced a serious proposal to deal with these two biggest drivers of our debt. Obama…

When asked about Medicare reform this afternoon in the Capitol, Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said, "We need to stop playing games and we need to come up with some solutions." What solutions might those be? "I already laid it out yesterday," Brown told me, referring to an op-ed he published in…

At a breakfast with reporters this morning, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who's currently vying for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, said his comments on Meet the Press last week, where he said he opposed “right-wing social engineering,” were not an attack on Paul Ryan or Ryan’s…

Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s secretary of Health and Human Services, lowered the bar of political discourse still further yesterday. Sebelius said that, under the proposed Medicare reforms authored by Paul Ryan and passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives, many seniors would…

Rasmussen finds that 40 percent of likely voters haven't heard enough about Ryan's plan to have an opinion about it, while 26 percent support it and 34 percent oppose it. What does this tell us? The fight over the budget remains very much unsettled.

Oh goody: "Trump Will ‘Probably’ Run as Independent If He Doesn’t Win GOP Nomination"