Avik Roy responds to my previous post on this topic. Ezra Klein adds his two cents.
I think both are right, to a point. The ACA takes the $700+ billions in Medicare spending reductions and plows them into providing health insurance for the poor. I’ve never said otherwise. But it’s part of a plan, whose details are out there and passed into law, which also adds in other spending cuts and new revenue streams in order to reduce the deficit overall.
The Romney budget, which lacks all sort of specifics, purports to cut Medicare less, and – according to Avik – plow those into deficit reduction alone. If that’s the case, then I don’t see how things don’t get even worse for his math. Ezra appears to be writing on that, and I’ll update if he does. (UPDATE: Here it is)
But the point is this. This could be a debate on how cuts to Medicare should be used and how they should be made, not which party is serious about cutting Medicare. I’m having that debate. Ezra is having that debate. Avik claims to be having that debate. But the campaign he’s representing sure isn’t.*
*I’m not claiming the Obama campaign is having that debate. But I have absolutely, positively no influence over them at all.
