Romney Makes Clear His Plan For Medicare: Partial Privatization

Mitt Romney whipped out a whiteboard yesterday primarily to simplify and amplify his brazen lie that President's Obama health care law cuts benefits for seniors -- literally putting "$716B Cut" next to the word "Seniors", when in fact Obama saves $716 billion in the cost of Medicare without cutting benefits to seniors.

But in doing so Romney made clear that his position on Medicare contains the same feature as what made Paul Ryan's Medicare plan so toxic: a voucher system that would partially privatize Medicare.

Romney and Ryan both employ the phrase "premium support" to "voucher" when pressed, but a true "premium support" plan would ensure that the lump sum seniors receive would keep up with the cost of health care, and the Romney and Ryan versions would not.

(On Romney's webpage, he poses the question to himself, "how high will the premium support be?" The answer begins, "Mitt continues to work on refining the details of his plan...")

As Politico details, there are some relatively minor differences between Romney and Ryan in the specifics of their plan, but the controversial part is the same: partial privatization.

This is no longer a point of confusion or debate. The Romney-Ryan ticket has chosen to make its signature policy proposal a radical gutting of Medicare as we know it.

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