The GOP's continuing angst over spinning Medicare reform

By Richard K. Barry

The Republican Party is continuing its bizarre approach of suggesting that it is being smeared when its opponents correctly represent its plans to gut Medicare -- this time in New Hampshire.

As Roll Call reports:

A day after launching an attack ad against New Hampshire Representative Charles Bass, two liberal groups have released new polling that suggests that the Republican is deeply unpopular just seven months after his election.

Just 29 percent of likely voters in New Hampshire's 2nd district approve of Bass' job performance, according to a survey conducted May 31 and June 1 by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on behalf of Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Sixty percent of New Hampshire respondents said they oppose cutting Medicare. And 69 percent said they support raising federal taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 a year "to save programs like Social Security and Medicare."

The ad (see below) features a New Hampshire social worker who claims to have voted for Bass in the past but will not again as she calls GOP plans for Medicare reform "an attack on New Hampshire families like mine."

We note that while Bass did hold the seat from 1996 to 2006, his successful campaign to regain it was only accomplished by less than 2 points in 2010, an election that saw the GOP surging across the country. In other words, at the best of times this would be a hard "hold" for Bass and these, likely, are not going to be the best of times.

So freaked out is Bass that he asked the New Hampshire TV stations airing the ad to take it down because, in his view, it incorrectly asserts that Republicans will "end Medicare" The stations have refused, which has prompted the groups responsible for the piece to increase their ad buy.

In a letter obtained by Greg Sargent at The Washington Post, Bass makes his case to the TV stations. He writes:

The Budget Resolution as approved by the U.S. House of Representatives does not end Medicare. In fact, the Budget Resolution makes no changes at all to Medicare for current or near retirees, as none of the Medicare-related provisions in the Budget Resolution would even take effect until 2022. This fact makes the Advertisement especially misleading, as the woman featured in the Advertisement is a current Medicare beneficiary, and would not have her Medicare benefits ended, or even changed in any way, under the Budget proposal.

Additionally, the Budget Resolution ensures that Americans aged 54 and younger will still have Medicare when they retire by implementing a new, sustainable model of Medicare. This version of Medicare would actually require insurance companies to guarantee coverage for seniors.

The main argument is that the claim that Republicans would "end Medicare" is "blatantly and wholly false, and has been deliberately crafted to mislead and frighten voters."

To this, Sergeant replies that:

[T]here are plenty of people making the opposite case. That the GOP plan does, in fact, end Medicare. The argument is that the GOP plan would do away with the current, single payer, government-run system that guarantees payment for your major health care costs as you head into retirement. The GOP proposal would replace this with a system in which government gives premium support - that could over time fall short of health care costs - to seniors to purchase their own private plans. In other words, the new plan does away with a program called "Medicare" and replaces it with a different program - and, hence, "ends it."

Finally, as Paul Krugman writes:

The plan would replace our current system, in which the government pays major health costs, with a voucher system, in which seniors would, in effect, be handed a coupon and told to go find private coverage.

The bottom line is that stating that the Republican proposal would end Medicare as it currently works is a very defensible stance. The GOP can call their plan anything they like, a ham sandwich if they want to, but they can't and shouldn't be allowed to call it Medicare. It is not what people think of when they think of Medicare.

What is important about this discussion is that it begins to provide an outline of the GOP/Democratic Party positions on Medicare that are likely to feature so prominently in the 2012 election. It doesn't look like the GOP is going to want to or be able to walk away from this kind of thinking, and if the best they have to offer by way of explanation is contained in Bass' letter, I can see why they would be worried.

One of the older adages in politics and one of the best is "if you're explaining, you're losing."

Here's the ad that has Bass so exercised:

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)