Fact Check: McCain's Medicare Cuts

Immediately after the final presidential debate, both Barack Obama and John McCain headed for hotly contested battleground states in an effort to shore up support in the final weeks of the election. Upon arriving in Virginia, Senator Obama quickly unveiled a new message: John McCain is going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare benefits. The only problem? His claim is not quite accurate.

An Associated Press fact check posted on the Yahoo News web site explains why Obama's claim about McCain's Medicare benefits cuts doesn't pass muster. Kevin Freking, an AP writer, says in "Fact Check: Obama's Claim of Benefit Cuts Suspect," that Obama is now accusing McCain of "seeking 'cuts in benefits, eligibility, or both.'"

"But Obama's charge," Freking says, "is built on a shaky foundation. The campaign's evidence that McCain would make such cuts relies on a Wall Street Journal article where no specific cuts were mentioned." Additionally, Freking says, a review of McCain's campaign web site reveals no statements about cutting Medicare benefits. In fact, in talking about both Medicare and Medicaid, the McCain site simply says, "We must reform the payment systems in Medicaid and Medicare to compensate providers for diagnosis, prevention and care coordination. Medicaid and Medicare should not pay for preventable medical errors or mismanagement."

Explaining the complexity of the issue, Freking says "McCain wants to provide tax credits to encourage Americans to purchase private health insurance. To pay for it, he has proposed requiring workers to pay income taxes on the health benefits they now receive tax-free from their employers. The Tax Policy Center has projected that the change would actually be a tax cut for most people and would reduce federal revenues by an estimated $1.3 trillion over 10 years." Since McCain's intent is for the health care plan to be revenue neutral, Freking says, he would look for savings in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. And that's where Barack Obama's claim enters the picture.

"Obama's ad cites a Wall Street Journal article from Oct. 6 that began: 'John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said.'" The problem with Obama's claim, Freking says, is that "...McCain's focus on Medicare has been on overhauling the way it pays providers. McCain has taken up the mantra that the government's payments should be based more on the quality of care that patients get rather than on quantity....An advisory commission to Congress...has long recommended that paying providers based on quality 'is an important first step towards purchasing the best care for beneficiaries and assuring the future of the program.'"

Finally, Freking says, "In comparing the two candidates' health care plan, the Kaiser Family Foundation...also makes no mention of McCain calling for benefit cuts to reduce Medicare costs." This latest "message" from Obama is just one more example of his cherry picking of words in a manner that distorts the truth about his opponent.