The TRUTH is...the medicare savings will add another 8-10 years of solvency to Medicare without touching benefits, while, according to the CBO , Medicare spending is expected to nearly double by 2020. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage premiums are down and enrollment is up, according to HHS -- hardly indicative of a plan that's suffering due to the ACA. (Affordable Care Act) The Romney campaign appears to be engaged in a pattern that involves creating and spreading a new and colossal Lie of the Week. Prior whoppers include the "Obama is disenfranchising military voters lie" ( debunked ) and the "Obama is gutting welfare reform lie" ( also debunked ).   By now, we all know what happened this week. On Sunday's Meet the Press , right-wing Rich Lowry shouted down Rachel Maddow on Medicare, saying that "Obamacare" cuts $700 billion from the program.       Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu appeared on CNN the next day and shouted down Soledad O'Brien with the same crap-on-a-stick. Specifically, he repeated the massive lie that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA or "Obamacare") cuts $717    billion from Medicare, implying that benefits were cut.     Where is this  LIE going to stop that started out as $500 billion now we're up to to the $700 billions ?   It turns out that the $717 billion number that Sununu was screeching about on CNN was pulled out of a July 24 CBO memo about the House plan to repeal Obamacare.     Doug Elmendorf explained,     "Spending for Medicare would increase by an estimated $716 billion over that 2013-2022 period."  There's nothing in there about benefit cuts or anything else the Republicans have said. Nothing. From here, the viral lie infected the discourse like the Ebola virus.       
Posted by JANMB