Paul Ryan and Medicare money

Paul Ryan and Medicare money

Aug. 31, 2012                       Ken Bickers

Now that the dust has settled from the Republican National Convention one questions remains: will vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan be the difference maker come November? According to Ken Bickers, CU-Boulder political analyst and professor, he may be.  Ryan gives the campaign a legitimate critic against President Obama’s health plan. Something, Bickers says, Romney can’t do.

CUT 1 “It’s just really hard for Mitt Romney to argue against ObamaCare when what he had pushed in Massachusetts some years ago ended up looking very much like a model for ObamaCare. (:13) So with that as a baseline, the selection of Ryan changes all of that. Because what Ryan does is it gives the Romney-Ryan campaign an opportunity not to talk about ObamaCare in whole but to talk about the shift of monies from Medicare to fund the ObamaCare program.” (:34)

Bickers says Ryan gives the campaign something that it was missing. Before Ryan Bickers says there wasn’t a real difference between ObamaCare and RomneyCare? Now, he says, there is a difference.

CUT 2 “An argument about which team will better protect Medicare when Obama has already taken $700 billion out of Medicare really plays to the Romney-Ryan campaign strength. (:13) Romney in Massachusetts didn’t have Medicare money that he could have repurpose so he can safely talk about a critique of ObamaCare that is completely different than RomneyCare.” (:26)

Bickers says to expect more talk from the Romney-Ryan team about taking money from Medicare to pay for the president’s health care plan. He says it’s an argument where Romney and Ryan can make some real headway.

-CU-