Congressman Slams Obama For Medicare Cuts That He Voted For Three Times
BY SY MUKHERJEE ON FEBRUARY 15, 2014 AT 1:42 PM
Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) slammed President Barack Obama’s signature health care law during the weekly GOP address on Saturday, arguing that the Affordable Care Act hurts seniors. “Here’s the reality — to help pay for his health care law, the president made deep cuts to the successful Medicare Advantage plan, which serves almost 30 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries,” said Rooney, adding that the cuts are causing seniors to lose access to care. There’s just one problem: Rooney voted for those same cuts on three separate occasions.
The Affordable Care Act extends Medicare’s solvency for a decade by saving the program $716 billion. Much of these savings are derived from a reduction in historically excessive payments to health care providers that serve the Medicare Advantage program.
Even though these cuts are to provider payments, and not to benefits, Republicans have repeatedly slammed them as Obama’s “Medicare cuts” for seniors — a line that was used on multiple occasions by Mitt Romney and House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) during the 2012 presidential campaign.
But Ryan has included these very “Medicare cuts” in every GOP budget he’s proposed since the ACA’s passage in 2010. And Rooney, alongside 95 percent of House and Senate Republicans, voted for Ryan’s budgets with their “Medicare cuts” and all in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/15/3297301/gop-congressman-slams-obama-medicare-cuts-voted/
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