August 04, 2011 04:58 PM UTC

Tipton Gets Fact-Challenged, Hypocritical Backup

• 5 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

With friends like these, reports The Hill:

The group [American Action Network] is spending roughly $1 million on the total campaign, which already included 22 other freshman House Republicans. Many on the list are in senior-heavy districts where Medicare is a top issue.

The more recently added GOP incumbents: Reps. Allen West (Fla.), Chip Cravaack (Minn.), Sean Duffy (Wis.), Rick Crawford (Ark.), Scott Rigell (Va.), Scott Tipton (Colo.), Dan Benishek (Mich.), Jim Renacci (Ohio), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Francisco “Quico” Canseco (Texas).

“President Obama is trying to radically change the Medicare Prescription Drug Program with Medicaid-style price controls,” reads one mailing piece. “Florida seniors can count on Congressman Allen West to stand up against the Obama Medicare plan.”

Adds Politico’s Alexander Burns:

Democrats have spent months accusing Republicans of attempting to “end Medicare” in the House GOP budget. The AAN campaign pushes back on that allegation, hitting Democrats for proposing “drastic changes” to prescription drug rebates and arguing that President Barack Obama wants to impose “Medicaid-style price controls” that would be harmful.

“President Obama and liberals in Washington are trying to shift the burden of deficit reduction to seniors through a proposal to introduce radical, Medicaid-style rebates to the Medicare Part D program,” said Brian Walsh, president of the American Action Network. “The American Action Network wants to praise those principled members of Congress who are opposing this radical plan to balance the budget on the backs of America’s seniors.”

The legislation AAN is targeting, the Medicare Drug Savings Act of 2011, was introduced last month. In unveiling the bill, California Rep. Henry Waxman said its goal was to bring down the cost of drugs by making drug manufacturers pay a rebate to the government for Part D recipients who receive both Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

That’s not how the bill is described in the AAN campaign, which contends that new costs to drug companies would end up being passed on to consumers…

It’s interesting to see Republicans counterattacking on the issue of Medicare Part D, even in the highly deceptive manner described above: Obama is to blame for Henry Waxman’s bill now? How about being remotely accurate about what the bill would actually do? But the bigger problem is this–Medicare Part D has been frequently been cited by Democrats as an example of Republican fiscal irresponsibility. An expansion of Medicare benefits costing the government billions of dollars each year, but approved the same year (2003) as the second round of Bush tax cuts. In fact, the combined sum of Medicare Part D and the Bush tax cuts’ expense is an amount that would offset the recent debt-ceiling legislation’s immediate cuts, as well as many of future cuts anticipated from the “super committee” formed by the compromise.

So there’s that. In a much more basic sense, though, voters know perfectly well who wants to cut Medicare, and who wants to “save” it. The case made by these ads will be counterintuitive and suspicious to just about anyone who has even casually followed recent fiscal debates in Washington. The “save Medicare” train has left the station, and Scott Tipton’s not on it.