The President's Lies About Medicare

President Obama and Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg hold a town hall in Palo Alto, Calif., April 20, 2011. (Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)

Obama has been on a tear lately, accusing Paul Ryan and Republicans of wanting to destroy Medicare as we know it. This is frankly an outrageous lie, because Medicare as we know it, will not survive no matter what proposal passes. It is unaffordable and rife with fraud. Its expenses keep climbing faster than inflation and price controls, the Obama solution, will only cause severe rationing, which will also end Medicare, as the rich, then the middle class leave the system. If that doesn't fundamentally change Medicare, what does?

From the WSJ discussing the board that Obamacare has created to control Medicare costs.

Starting in 2014, the board is charged with holding Medicare spending to certain limits, which at first is a measure of inflation. After 2018, the threshold is the nominal per capita growth of the economy plus one percentage point. Last week Mr. Obama said he wants to lower that to GDP plus half a percentage point.

Mr. Ryan has been lambasted for linking his "premium support" Medicare subsidies to inflation, not the rate of health cost growth. But if that's as unrealistic as the liberal wise men claim, then Mr. Obama's goals are even more so. Medicare grew 2.1 percentage points faster between 1985 and 2009 than Mr. Obama's new GDP target. At least Mr. Ryan is proposing a workable model for bringing costs down over time by changing incentives.

Time for Democrats to get serious about the fact that fundamental changes are required. I am not reading that the President is trumpeting the ability of unelected bureaucrats to actually control costs.

We need to face the facts as a nation. People are living longer, so they want and demand more medical care. The cost of medical care will increase and there are fewer workers to pay into the system. The math is very straightforward. When I retire, I am going to have to shoulder more of my health care than my parents did under Medicare. The only question is the form this will take. Mr. Obama does the country, nor his re-election chances no favors by pretending otherwise and by using demagoguery on this issue.