Joe Heck Lied About Medicare... AND President Obama!

Joe Heck finally held a town hall meeting in his district. At least we got that... Even though it was at the very edge of civilization, and even though Heck tried his hardest not to directly answer "difficult" questions. Here he is dancing around his own vote to kill Medicare...



And not only couldn't he muster up the "courage" to mention Paul Ryan and his plan to kill Medicare by name, but he even LIED about what President Obama said! Here are Obama's own words on Medicare...



Go back to 1:20 on the first video to catch Heck's whopper on Obama and Medicare. Again, here is President Obama describing his own proposal to make health care more efficient.



This is what the Presdient proposed:

Many of these proposals build on the savings in the Affordable Care Act and most have already been introduced by the administration in the President’s April deficit reduction proposal. He’s offering $248 billion in Medicare savings and $72 billion in savings from Medicaid and other health care programs. Raising the Medicare eligibility age — which the administration had flirted with in the past — is off the table and instead the President is focusing on finding savings on the provider end, while also asking wealthier beneficiaries to pay more for coverage. [...]

Bottom line is — if what’s driving health care costs at the federal level is national health expenditures, modernization that addresses costs and pays for more efficient care is really the only way of producing long-term savings. Proposals like expanding IPAB and changing payment rates to promote greater efficiency and reduce hospital readmissions are initiatives that will begin to move us in that direction.

And this is Paul Ryan's plan that Joe Heck voted for:

Ryan’s “premium support” proposal for Medicare wouldn’t do anything to actually lower the nation’s health care spending. Rather, it reduces government expenditures by asking future enrollees to pay more for their health care coverage. Future seniors would be taken out of the traditional Medicare program and given a “premium support” to purchase more expensive private coverage. As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded in its analysis of the Ryan proposal, “a typical beneficiary would spend more for health care…[because] private plans would cost more than traditional Medicare.” ”This would more than double out-of-pocket health-care spending by a typical senior to $12,500 per year.”

See the difference? Paul Ryan's Kill Medicare Plan forces all future seniors to give up traditional Medicare in favor of vouchers, and it would even increase health care costs for current seniors on Medicare.

“This analysis shows the immediate and long-term impacts of these changes in the 3rd Congressional District in Nevada, which is represented by Rep. Joseph J. Heck.

The Republican proposal would have adverse impacts on seniors and disabled individuals in the district who are currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Increase prescription drug costs for 9,500 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D do-nut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $94 million for drugs over the next decade.

• Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 120,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district.

The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the district age 54 and younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Deny 780,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.

• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 155,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.

• Require the 155,000 individuals in the district between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $36.2 billion for their retirement – an average of $182,000 to $287,000 per individual – to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the district will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.

• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 89,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 624,000 individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger. “

President Obama has stated he supports none of this, and would rather see costs controlled by making wealthier seniors pay what they can afford while cutting provider costs and ending insurance industry giveaways. We've already seen this in the Affordable Care Act, and that's what we will continue to see if this proposal is implemented.

Studies have shown that Medicare is far better at controlling costs than private insurers, yet Ryan and Heck continue to mislead on this.



So now, all of a sudden, they're claiming President Obama agrees with them. The fact of the matter is that he doesn't, and that Democratic proposals to enact savings in Medicare and Medicaid are far different than what the "G-O-TEA" has offered. And if Heck is serious about "ending the scare tactics", he can start himself by declining to repeat the lie that "Medicare is going broke", and the only way to "fix" it is by implementing full privatization.