Ezra Klein - The Republican ticket’s big Medicare myth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/13/the-white-houses-medicare-plan-isnt-that-hard-to-find/
very good, wonky (=full of numbers) but also easy to understand comparison of Medicare plans Obama/democrats vs. Ryan/Romney
Ive got a modest proposal: Youre not allowed to demand a serious conversation over Medicare unless you can answer these three questions:
1) Mitt Romney says that unlike the current president who has cut Medicare funding by $700 billion. We will preserve and protect Medicare. What happens to those cuts in the Ryan budget?
2) What is the growth rate of Medicare under the Ryan budget?
3) What is the growth rate of Medicare under the Obama budget?
The answers to these questions are, in order, it keeps them, GDP+0.5%, and GDP+0.5%.
Lets be very clear on what that means: Ryans budget which Romney has endorsed keeps Obamas cuts to Medicare, and both Ryan and Obama envision the same long-term spending path for Medicare. The difference between the two campaigns is not in how much they cut Medicare, but in how they cut Medicare.