CNN, August 15, 2012 -- Soledad O'Brien got into a heated shouting match with Romney surrogate John Sununu on Tuesday, and she's slapping back his claims about Medicare.
The CNN host and Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, clashed over the differences between Paul Ryan's budget plan and Mitt Romney's. The debate went off the rails when Sununu claimed that Obama took $717 billion from Medicare to fund his health care reform plan.
O'Brien said that those numbers have been "debunked," which outraged Sununu. "Soledad, stop this!" he yelled. "Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead when you do this!"
After reviewing the claim, O'Brien presented her findings on Wednesday's "Starting Point." She cited a Congressional Budget Office report that said that repealing Obamacare would increase Medicare spending by about $716 billion through 2022 — but keeping it would not cut Medicare spending either.
"The CBO says this money — Democrats call it savings, Republicans call it cuts — would be achieved mostly through cutbacks in payments to providers and by changes to payment rates in private Medicare plans," she said.
She also refuted Romney's claim that Medicare benefits would be reduced under Obama's health care reform, referring to findings by the independent organization FactCheck.org. She quoted the site, saying, "the law stipulates that guaranteed Medicare benefits won't be reduced, and it adds some new benefits, such as improved coverage for pharmaceuticals."
AARP tells its members: “The Health Care Law strengthens Medicare by protecting and improving your guaranteed benefits and cracking down waste, fraud and inefficiency.”
The Health Care Law (The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act) states: “Nothing in the provisions of or amendments made by this Act shall result in a reduction of guaranteed benefits under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act.”
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Friday, August 17th 2012 at 11:18AM
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