It’s time for a wave of the GOP-wants-to-let-old-folks-die rhetoric from the Obama campaign. From NBC News:
And today when Obama begins a two-day swing through the crucial state of Florida — with all of its seniors — he’ll introduce another attack: hitting Romney on Medicare and the Ryan budget. Per the campaign, the president “will discuss his commitment to strengthening Medicare, and a new report tomorrow that highlights the devastating impact Mitt Romney’s Medicare plan could have on the 3.4 million Floridians that rely on Medicare.” Bottom line, per the campaign’s guidance: Obama will argue that Romney — through his support for the Ryan budget plan — advocates ending Medicare “as we know it.”
During a town hall in Ohio yesterday, Mitt Romney addressed Medicare, saying, “There’s only one person I know that has cut Medicare by $500 billion, and that’s President Obama.” He made the case that his policies would sustain, not eradicate Medicare.
For the Romney team, it would be advantageous to shift from Bain (with all its focus on Romney’s affluence, and his inability to comfortably address that or his role at Bain, and what Bain did) to Medicare, where there are clear-cut policy, not personal, differences.
UPDATE: And right after I write this, the Romney campaign blasts out an e-mail related to Medicare. “Mitt Romney has a plan to preserve Medicare for today’s seniors while strengthening it for future generations,” said Lanhee Chen, Romney policy director, in a statement. “In contrast, President Obama will end Medicare as we know it – he takes hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to spend on Obamacare and will leave seniors with fewer choices. He has offered no serious plan of his own to save Medicare and is content to use it as nothing more than a political issue.”