Let’s get back to President Obama’s ‘Secretary of Explaining Stuff.’ Romney and Ryan have repeatedly accused the President of robbing Medicare of $716 billion. Here’s how President Clinton framed the response at the DNC convention in Charlotte.
Here’s what really happened. There were no cuts to benefits at all. None. What the president did was to save money by taking the recommendations of a commission of professionals to cut unwarranted subsidies to providers and insurance companies that were not making people healthier and were not necessary to get the providers to provide the service.
And instead of raiding Medicare, he used the savings to close the doughnut hole in the Medicare drug program — (cheers, applause) — and — you all got to listen carefully to this; this is really important — and to add eight years to the life of the Medicare trust fund so it is solvent till 2024. (Cheers, applause.)
So — (chuckles) — so President Obama and the Democrats didn’t weaken Medicare; they strengthened Medicare.
The former president made special note of Ryan’s simultaneously opposing positions “. . . that $716 billion is exactly, to the dollar, the same amount of Medicare savings that he has in his own budget. (Cheers, applause.) You got to get one thing — it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did. (Laughter, cheers, applause.)”
Video and complete text of Clinton’s speech at the Charlotte DNC convention at Politico.