“Medicare, Medicare, and Medicare,” is going to be the mantra for Congressional Democrats going into this year’s election, said Rep. Steve Israel (R-NY), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. On Monday’s Hardball, Israel said he was telling other Democratic representatives to run against the Ryan plan for Medicare now that Paul Ryan had become the Republican candidate for vice president.
“We had a conference call with our candidates, and we told them, what you need to do is focus on the following three issues in alphabetical order and order of priority: Medicare, Medicare, and Medicare,” Israel told Hardball host Chris Matthews. “That’s what this election is going to be about, not cutting Medicare to fund tax cuts for millionaires.”
Though Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate at least in part because of the Wisconsin representative’s conservative economic record, the campaign has taken pains in recent days to say that Romney’s budget plan is not the same as Ryan’s. However, on Medicare, Romney and Ryan’s views are remarkably similar: both would replace a single-payer Medicare system with a private voucher program.
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog. Recommended
