Fact check: Ad attacking Elissa Slotkin on Medicare doesn't make sense

Todd Spangler | Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON — A new TV ad released by a national Republican group on Tuesday suggests that Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, supports a plan that has undermined Medicare, the health care policy for older Americans, by cutting $800 billion from it.

The ad is not true.

While it is true that the Congressional Budget Office in 2015 estimated that a Republican-proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act – otherwise known as Obamacare – would require an increase in mandatory Medicare spending over a decade by more than $800 billion, that is not the same as suggesting that amount would somehow go toward improving benefits or otherwise strengthening the program.

In fact, independent groups including the Kaiser Family Foundation found that most of that $800 million would go to providers whose payments were limited as cost-saving measures under Obamacare’s provisions.

Kaiser also said that, by getting rid of payroll taxes and other reforms in the law, the repeal would also “likely lead to higher Medicare premiums, deductibles, and cost sharing for beneficiaries, and accelerate the insolvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund.”

That is not to say that Republicans support a plan that would undermine Medicare, either, since they could potentially take steps to shore it up under any Obamacare repeal package. But it is inaccurate to suggest that passage of Obamacare has somehow put Medicare benefits more at risk as this new ad, sponsored by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), does.

Read more:

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This is not the first time Medicare has come up in this campaign. Last month, the Free Press questioned an ad by Bishop suggesting that Slotkin supported a plan that would inevitably bankrupt Medicare. Nor is it the first time the NRCC – which supports the election of Republicans to the U.S. House – has tried to link Slotkin with support of Obamacare or used it to target other Democrats.

The Washington Post gave one such ad a rating of "Four Pinocchios" — its strongest denunciation of a claim as being false.

This ad goes a step further, not only by noting that the Affordable Care Act reduced Medicare spending – which it does – but by saying those actions “make things worse” for Medicare recipients

Passage of Obamacare in fact included phased-in benefits to cover the so-called “doughnut hole” in pharmaceutical benefits, improved costs for prevention coverage and, according to some experts, strengthened the Medicare trust fund by including higher payroll taxes to help pay for it.

In fact, there have been reports that have suggested that passage of the Republican tax reform may hasten trouble for the Medicare trust fund by reducing payments flowing into it, though it's important to note that Medicare has never been insolvent and that policymakers of either party are unlikely — despite over-the-top campaign rhetoric — to take overt actions putting benefits at risk.

Meanwhile, the Republican ad also includes a line that also tries to say both that Michigan seniors “rely on Medicare” and that “Slotkin would move toward government control of our health care” as if the latter would endanger the former. But that’s tortured logic at best since Medicare — a hugely popular program — is itself a government health care program.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.