Fighting back against Mediscare

It's doubtful that the Romney-Ryan 2012 campaign was caught unsuspecting by the tactics of the Obama campaign when it came to Paul Ryan's proposal to reform Medicare.  The evidence?

This excellent ad was released earlier today by the Romney campaign -



In 1965, Medicare was created as part of President Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' initiatives - Title XVIII of the Social Security Act.

The Social Security Act was enacted on this day by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935.

Social Security is, today, 77 years old.

Medicare is 47 years old.

Both were created in different times.  The Medicare actuarial trustees, in this year's report, raise a major concern with the program, saying it will be insolvent by 2024.  That grim pronouncement did not include the impact to the plan by the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) pulling out $716 billion over the next decade to help cover the costs associated with the Affordable Healthcare Act.

The overall Social Security financial report worsened significantly in 2012 - from the 2012 report...

“Lawmakers should not delay addressing the long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare,” the trustees wrote. “If they take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.

Contrary to the 'scare' tactics of the Democrats, the GOP, and in particular Romney / Ryan are not proposing that either of these plans be eliminated.  They do, however, insist that fiscal changes need to be taken to address the fiscal challenges of our country.  They also propose, in the case of Medicare, to reform the program so that it will remain viable well beyond 2024.  This includes ensuring that those 55 and older are exempted by any reforms while those under 55 have several options available to them, including remaining in Medicare as it is now or selecting the same health insurance options and coverages as currently provided employees of the federal government.

If we as voters are to be scared of anything, what we should be frightened of is four more years of the same anti-business, pro-big government, 'shared prosperity', social justice, stagnant economy, and misplaced priorities of the Obama Administration.

November 2012 is when we need to take action to start righting the course of our ship of state.  If we do not win in November, we may be too far down (as are Greece, Spain, and perhaps California and Illinois) to solve these problems without far more pain that we are willing to undertake.