Posted on August 15, 2012

Krauthammer: Democrats Have "Stepped On A Land Mine With Medicare"

Charles Krauthammer: I think the Democrats are discovering that they stepped on a land mine with Medicare. The fact is that Medicare was raided for Obamacare and here's why. This isn't even a wee issue. The Obama administration had to show -- because it kept arguing that this is not going to cost anybody anything, this will be revenue neutral. It's not going to add to the budget deficit. Remember that was the mantra for a year and a half. So they had to get half a [trillion] dollars from somewhere. That's why they made the cuts in Medicare in order to be able to say in the bill, in the Obamacare bill itself, you take that money, you put it in Obamacare, it pays for itself, thus it's revenue neutral. This is not a fable, it's not a fiction, it was the heart of the debate.



Now, as you interviewed the president, you pointed out that they keep arguing, 'No, the money isn't spent over here, it's really in the trust fund.' It is not. You can't have it in two places. So that is simply a fact and that is devastating because the Republicans can now argue that Obama is actually taking the money from your grandma today and for the next decade. Whereas the Ryan plan contemplates a change which begins in ten years which would exempt anybody who is in the system today, which doesn't' reduce the spending in Medicare. And then what Obama said is that at the end of that plan you lose the guarantee of the Medicare. That also is a falsehood. The Medicare option is retained in 2022.