Romney's $716 Billion Medicare Lie

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney

Here’s how Romney put it in an interview with 60 Minutes shortly after selecting Paul Ryan as his Vice Presidential running mate:

"There's only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare."

First things first: Neither Obama nor his health care law literally cut a dollar amount from the Medicare program’s budget.

Rather, the health care law instituted a number of changes to try to bring down future health care costs in the program. At the time the law was passed, those reductions amounted to $500 billion over the next 10 years.

What kind of spending reductions are we talking about? They were mainly aimed at insurance companies and hospitals, not beneficiaries. The law makes significant reductions to Medicare Advantage, a subset of Medicare plans run by private insurers. Medicare Advantage was started under President George W. Bush, and the idea was that competition among the private insurers would reduce costs. But in recent years the plans have actually cost more than traditional Medicare. So the health care law scales back the payments to private insurers.
Hospitals, too, will be paid less if they have too many re-admissions, or if they fail to meet other new benchmarks for patient care.

In reality, several presidents have reduced Medicare spending.

We reviewed this history in detail in a fact-check of Romney’s statement from December, "Only one president has ever cut Medicare for seniors in this country . . . Barack Obama." PolitiFacts rated that False.  Many presidents have sought to rein in Medicare spending.

PolitiFacts Ruling:

The only element of truth here is that the health care law seeks to reduce future Medicare spending, and the tally of those cost reductions over the next 10 years is $716 billion. The money wasn’t "robbed," however, and other presidents have made similar reductions to the Medicare program.

Politifacts rate this statement Mostly False.

Posted in: 2012 Presidential Race,Affordable Care Act,Medicare Cuts,Mitt Romney,Paul Ryan,PolitiFacts,President Barack Obama