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Medicare, media coverage and maintaining momentum: Herman Cain weighs in on his 2012 campaign

Natalie Gonnella
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In an interview post today on NRO's The Corner, 2012 contender and former Godfather's Pizza CEO, Herman Cain offered his views on his presidential chances, how he feels about the Ryan budget proposal and the media's coverage of his candidacy thus far.

With Cain currently boasting the highest Positive Intensity Score among the prospective GOP field, and having topped the latest ConservativeHome/Daily Caller 2012 survey, here's a look at what the newly announced presidential candidate had to say:

On Paul Ryan's budget plan:

I absolutely support Paul Ryan’s plan...It is exactly the kind of bold restructuring that we need in order to get our hands around the entitlements issue. We need to restructure programs, not just reshuffle, which is what we did for decades, and now look where we are...Liberals are trying to make it seem like we are going to throw old people off of the bridge...That is a lie. That is all they can say, because they don’t want to fix the status quo.

On the major networks lack of attention to his candidacy:

Occasionally, they ask me to come do an interview; then, right before it happens, they cancel it. There are a couple of theories out there about why this is the case. One is that I am the last person they’d like to see run against Barack Obama.

On winning the GOP nomination:

I can’t say who else might get in...But if you look at the announced candidates — Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and me — I think my chances of getting the nomination are just as great as their chances, and probably better than some of them.

On the early states:

I do not believe that the South, nor Georgia, is necessarily Newt Gingrich’s territory, simply because of the experience that he has there...We are going to do well in all of these early states. People are connecting with my message, with my commonsense solutions and my passion.

The New York special election may not have been about Medicare, but the post-election debate will be - Three takeaways from last night

Ryan Streeter
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Medicare is the formula that has “cracked the GOP code.” That’s the Politico headline (with a little commentary thrown in) this morning.

The results were barely in last night when commentators began claiming that the election did and did not signal a referendum on Ryan’s plan.

For instance, at the Post, EJ Dionne (perhaps unsurprisingly) says:

I don’t care what Republicans say publicly on Wednesday: This race has to worry them, and it will petrify first-term Republicans in middle-of-the-road or Democratic-leaning districts who voted for the Ryan budget. Democrats should be very grateful that Ryan put his plan together, and that House Speaker John Boehner forced Republicans to vote on it.

His colleague Jennifer Rubin isn’t so sure:

Democrats are high-fiving, certain that Medicare is now the killer issue for 2012 (and indifferent to the presence of a third-party candidate). I rather doubt it…Try as Democrats might to deny it, 2012 will be a referendum on the president.

Philip Klein sees this as “just one data point in a single Congressional district out of 435. So it would be silly for Republicans to panic suddenly flee from the Ryan plan.” Erick Erickson was even briefer in his assessment: “Republicans suck in New York, Period. End of story.”

Today will be filled with competing commentary on what last night’s special election means.

A quick wrap-up of post-election statements gives a pretty good preview of how the interpretation of last night will go on today’s cable and radio shows. We might say Medicare's importance last night will have more to do with who wins the debate going forward about how important it was.

Here are three points worth taking away from last night.

First, even if the NY special election is something much less than Democratic code-cracking, it sends a warning signal to the GOP in one important respect: working class voters are highly impressionable on Medicare. AEI’s Henry Olsen writes that blue collar Republicans went for Davis over Corwin, mainly because they typically vote differently from the GOP base on safety net issues. “The truth is,” he writes, “if conservatives and Republicans are to move forward with entitlement reform (as they should), they need to address the real concerns of these pivotal voters.” Certainly, we cannot say that blue collar voters in NY are different in kind from blue collar voters elsewhere. Olsen makes a good point.

Second, the media response will give some already-jittery Republicans even greater shudders and might give them greater confidence about saying they have issues with the GOP plan. Peter Suderman, as one sympathetic to the Ryan plan, believes the backlash against the plan is in large part the Republicans’ fault. Writing before the NY 26 results were in, he argues that Republicans have recently been reverting to where they have been in the past: worried about Ryan’s reforms and sending signals that they, as a party, are far from embracing reform. The point here is that the GOP, not the Democrats, could be its own worst enemy on Medicare going into 2012.

Third, even if last night was more about New York politics than about Medicare (a view I hold), the commentary in response to it will very much be about Medicare, which will force Republicans to choose to be clearer than they have been about how they want to have this fight going forward. In the public debate, Republicans need to be forceful and clear about the alternatives before the public. Some will want to change the subject, citing last night as evidence that you cannot talk about Medicare and win. But we cannot quickly forget that Paul Ryan became the face of the GOP precisely by talking about it when it was highly unpopular to do so. The wind is still at his back, even if sailors are diving overboard right and left.

Truthfulness about the issues should be the Republican stronghold right now. Accuse the Democrats of what they are actually doing: denying reality.

As Ross Douthat points out in this excellent post, the reality is that in the future seniors are going to have to pick up more of the tab for health care, regardless of whether we adopt the Ryan premium support plan or go with the Obama IPAB rationing plan. In the former, we limit what seniors receive each year and expect that will contain costs through smarter competition, and in the latter, the government controls costs by limiting benefits that seniors receive, which is the same thing as asking them to pick up more of the tab (or go without coverage).

Douthat also adds that means-testing is an important part of this equation. He’s right, it is. Over half the country’s wealth is held by people over 55, so some portion of that population can afford to receive less from the government at the expense of younger workers.

Pointing this out may not sound like a winning strategy in Florida, but truthfulness about this issue is the only way forward.

And the truth is that the Democrats very much favor: (1) forcing seniors to foot more of the bill through rationing, (2) transferring massive amounts of money from poorer, younger workers to wealthier seniors, and (3) ensuring the middle class is hit with tax hikes in the not-too-distant future as costs continue to rise.

Democrat Mediscare-mongering wins big in NY26 special election

By Tim Montgomerie
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Democrat Kathy Hochul beat Republican Jane Corwin by 48% to 42% last night in the New York 26 special election. The populist Tea party candidate Jack Davis won 9%.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight warns the Republicans against dismissing the result: "a seat that would ordinarily be won by Republicans by about 12 points, but was instead won by the Democrats by 6 points, is a pretty big deviation from the norm."

Democrats are jubilant with Jonathan Chait claiming that "the political landscape that produced the Republican sweep of 2010 is gone." They believe that their attacks on Paul Ryan's Medicare plan* - which dominated Democrat messaging - are the reason. Nancy Pelosi summed up her party's tactic: “We have a plan –- it’s called Medicare.” And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Steve Israel told MSNBC that his party won for three reasons: "Medicare, Medicare, Medicare."

Some conservatives agree that Ryan may be fatal for the GOP. Here's John Podhoretz at Commentary:

"This is one of those life-isn’t-fair occasions that characterize politics. What Ryan did in drawing up his budget plan was brave, visionary, and direct, and therefore highly controversial. And the words “controversial” and “successful presidential candidate” do not mix. Ryan is no Gingrich, no Palin. He does not have the manner or mien of someone who accepts and even welcomes division. But by facing down the inescapable problem of the American fiscal future and proposing tough measures to forestall disaster, he has done what politicians spend their careers avoiding—he has staked his claim to leadership by fearless truth-telling. He cleaned the lens. But voters want the chance to view their leaders through gauze. The Ryan 2012 boomlet is over."

At National Review Henry Olsen notes that the Democrats did successfully scare NY26's many blue collar workers about Republican plans for Medicare but that doesn't make the plan wrong. He suggests the GOP could return fire and scare voters about Democrat plans (my emphasis):

"[Blue collar voters] voters crave stability and are uncertain of their ability to compete in a globalized economy that values higher education more each year. They are also susceptible to the age-old Democratic argument that the secret Republican agenda is to eviscerate middle-class entitlements to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. The truth is, if conservatives and Republicans are to move forward with entitlement reform (as they should), they need to address the real concerns of these pivotal voters. Eric Cantor’s recent statements that Ryan’s plan is the only way to protect Medicare is a step in the right direction, because the truth is that the president’s plan does not ensure that Medicare will remain strong in the face of gigantic budget deficits as far as the eye can see. And to the extent that he does offer a solution, it’s in the form of bureaucratic and political price setting — a rationing of care via the unelected IPAB and CMS bureaucrats. Blue-collar whites do not trust government generally; they certainly will not like that. Republicans need to fight the war over the future of Medicare fiercely and intelligently. Perhaps tonight’s debacle will be the wake-up call they sorely need."

The defeat certainly wasn't Medicare alone... At the American Spectator James Antle spotlights the screwy impact of the $5.2 million third party candidate and others note that the GOP had the wrong class of candidate in a seat with lots of blue collar workers: "Privately, in retrospect, Republicans wonder if this well-dressed, Range Rover-driving businesswoman was the right fit in a district where the wealthy are concentrated in the Buffalo-area subdivisions near where Corwin lives. Both GOP consultants and voters complained about her designer handbags and aloof demeanor, which didn’t play so well with dairy farmers suffering the ups and downs of milk prices and blue-collar Republicans in the small towns that dot the district."

The big danger for Ryan is that whatever the true meaning of NY26 there'll be panic in GOP ranks and others will join Scott Brown and Lisa Murkowski and oppose his reform plan.

_______

* "House Republicans approved a proposal to change [Medicare] from a fee-for-service program into a system of private insurance plans, backed by government subsidies. People 55 and older would not be affected by the plan."

Jane Corwin granted court order barring certification of winner in NY special election

Natalie Gonnella
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With less than five hours to go before the polls close in Western New York, the Buffalo News reports that GOP candidate Jane Corwin this afternoon obtained a court order barring a certification of a winner in the special 26th District election pending a hearing later this week.

According to the Buffalo News:

Under the judge's 11-page order, attorneys for Corwin have until Wednesday to serve copies of the court order on the election boards of Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming, Livingston and Monroe counties, their sheriff's departments, the state Board of Elections and her three opponents...

...Chris Grant, a spokesman for the Corwin campaign, said the court action "is very typical" in such close elections.

"We recognize the closeness of the race and we want to make sure that every legal vote is counted fairly and accurately," Grant said...

...[State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia] has scheduled a hearing on the election case for 10:30 a.m. Thursday in his second-floor courtroom at 25 Delaware Ave. But the entire matter could be "moot" if the winning margin is sufficient to eliminate any need for court action, Wojtaszek said

The political risks on Medicare have been clear all along: Now it's time for jittery Republicans to answer three questions about where they stand on reform

Ryan Streeter
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Politico reported as news yesterday that House Republicans “raced through political red lights” in their effort to include Medicare reform in the GOP’s April budget. The story recounts the dissension within the GOP ranks about Ryan’s plan before the budget vote, and how signs from pollsters signaled big political risks.

Anyone who thinks GOP leadership was ignoring “political red lights” is rewriting the past. The risks were well-known back in February and March as Republican members debated whether and how to push forward on reforms to Medicare in the House budget.

For instance, in light of numerous reports of GOP nervousness about entitlement reform in February, a number of us said such obvious things as “[reforming entitlements] will be difficult. [House Republicans] will need the courage to withstand the political blowback they will get.” Courage was in order because, as Matthew Continetti wrote in the Weekly Standard, plenty of conservatives were ready to bail: “Opinion polls and the political dangers that accompany any discussion of entitlements have persuaded some conservatives that the GOP can afford to wait another two (four? six?) years to reveal its plans for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” Because of political fears, many in Washington, including a lot of jittery Republicans, were in Reihan Salam’s words, “pretenders, not cutters” on entitlement reform.

The point is this: a debate within the GOP about the political risks of reforming entitlements was practically taking place in the open air before the April budget, and Republican leadership decided to propose serious reforms to Medicare anyway.

They were certainly under grassroots pressure (the Politico story makes it sound as if the tea party was the reason Boehner and Co. went after entitlements), but they were also acting on a series of well-documented claims – especially after Obama’s neglect of the deficit in his State of the Union – that our nation is in fiscal trouble, and that Medicare is a major reason why.

However, even though political demagoguery was expected and predicted, many in the GOP are getting cold feet about the reforms. The polling, the special election in New York, the constant barrage in the media – it all might prove to be too much stress for those who place politics over principle. To capitalize on this nervousness, Harry Reid will hold a purely political Senate vote on the Ryan budget on Thursday to force Republicans to show where they stand. Politico covers it this morning here.

Republicans have to decide where they stand on 3 important questions, which we can formulate as either-or dichotomies:

Either you can shape public opinion, or you can respond to it. Paul Ryan said on Meet the Press last Sunday that leaders shape the polls, not the other way around. He's right, even though most elected leaders seem to forget this - if they ever learned it. Caving to predictable political pressures would be an unforgivable act of political cowardice. Of course you might lose an election by being bold. That's what politics is. The goal is to prevent that from happening by winning the argument.

Either you’re for limiting how much we contribute to Medicare beneficiaries each year, or you’re for the unsustainable status quo. As the WSJ editors pointed out yesterday, this is where we are. To dodge the Ryan plan forces you to say what you would do about Medicare instead. And so far, all other ideas keep the burgeoning, economy-killing trajectory of Medicare intact.

Either you’re for reform now, or raising taxes soon. “We have time” is a common expression by those who punt on Medicare reform. Theoretically, they’re right. We don’t have to reform Medicare tomorrow. But “political time” is different than real time, so in actuality, the hourglass is likely to hit empty before we have achieved real reform. And if we don’t keep advancing a reform agenda, then tax hikes will simply happen. It won't be a question of whether, but when.

The Republicans’ Medicare proposal was not an act of courage that ended when the budget was voted on. The vote was only the beginning.

Medicare will change because it must: the question is whether Republicans will have the courage to continue defending the right kinds of changes

Ryan Streeter
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The WSJ's editorial this morning on Medicare is worth highlighting. It's about political courage. The editors ask whether Paul Ryan's Medicare reforms have gone too far and answer the question in the negative.

Entitlement reform is the hardest challenge in politics, which is one reason we oppose all new entitlements. But Republicans now tempted to retreat at the first smell of cordite need to understand that they are taking even larger political and policy risks than Mr. Ryan is.

Playing it safe and trying to introduce reforms at the edges, the editors argue, haven't helped Republicans in the past few decades. Medicare Advantage, HSAs in the 2003 drug bill, and continual talk about tort reform haven't gotten to the core issue: controlling prices vs. limiting how much we contribute to seniors each year. The half measures, they say, have in some ways paved the way for ObamaCare. I think they're right, and they're also right to say:

The political forces unleashed by ObamaCare will grow unimpeded if Republicans now retreat from offering an alternative. Once the White House's efforts to limit costs by fiat fail—as they inevitably will—liberals will turn to even harsher controls. This future is already emerging in post-Mitt Romney Massachusetts, and also in Vermont, which wants to move to single government payer.

So we're in a fairly simple-to-grasp place: the choice is between what Ryan is proposing (or a close cousin) and what Obama has proposed. Dancing around the edges or pretending there's some safer middle will only make things worse. And it would be a failure of political courage. They conclude:

Mr. Gingrich has done great harm to his party and the cause of reform with his reckless criticism of Mr. Ryan, forfeiting any serious claim to be the GOP nominee. But equally as culpable are the self-styled conservative pundits who derided Republicans for dropping the reform mantle during the Bush years but now tremble that Mr. Ryan has gone too far.

The reality is that Medicare "as we know it" will change because it must. The issue is how it will change, and, leaving aside this or that detail, the only alternatives are Mr. Ryan's proposal to introduce market competition or Mr. Obama's plan for ever-tightening government controls on prices and care. Republicans who think they can dodge this choice are only guaranteeing that Mr. Obama will prevail.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: Democrats claim to be the defenders of Medicare, yet they stand idly by while Medicare goes bankgrupt

Natalie Gonnella

As Democrats continue to ignore the need for Medicare reform, Congressman Eric Cantor today hit back at both their disregard for the program's looming insolvency, and their attack on the GOP's attempt to salvage Medicare's long-term future.

Here's a quick look at what the House Majority leader had to say:

The latest Medicare Trustees report makes clear that the program is much closer to bankruptcy than believed even last year, and that the program is in far more trouble than the Trustees or CBO had projected. The truth is that Medicare taxes and premiums only cover a little more than half of the cost of the program, and most Americans understand that the program needs to be changed to preserve and protect it for future seniors. That is why Republicans have offered a plan to guarantee benefits for seniors and those approaching retirement while ensuring that this important safety-net exists for Americans under 54 years of age.

In stark contrast, the current Democratic plan for Medicare - endorsed by President Obama, Leader Reid, and Leader Pelosi - is the rationing of care, elimination of benefits, and bankruptcy of the popular program. Even worse, while Democrats do nothing to save Medicare from collapse, they have tried to scare seniors by mischaracterizing real solutions to strengthen and save the program and using those efforts as a political weapon.

Cantor's full statement and other related information is available to view here.

"We don’t have a choice. We’ve hit the wall": Jon Huntsman backs Paul Ryan's budget plan, Medicare provisions included

Natalie Gonnella
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In his first major TV interview as a likely 2012 candidate, Jon Huntsman this morning backed Paul Ryan's plan for spending reform, entitlement provisions and all.

Taking a distinctly different position than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other potential contenders who have remained vague about entitlement reform, when asked about Ryan's proposal Huntsman told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that if he definitely would have voted for it:

I would’ve voted for it...Including the Medicare provisions. Because the only thing that scares me more than that is the trajectory that our debt is taking. And the trajectory that our debt is taking now beyond $14 trillion is going to have an impact on our currency. It goes south, and our currency’s going to have an impact on our standard of living and affect every family in this country, and over time, our international competitiveness. So what is really scary I think to me and I think most Americans is our debt. And we’ve got to be bold, and we’ve got to have, I think, proposals on the table that perhaps in years past would’ve been laughed out of the room. And we’ve got to look seriously at them. We don’t have a choice. We’ve hit the wall.

The full transcript from Huntsman's Good Morning America interview, including his views on the current situation in the Middle East, is available to read here.

If you're worried that all of this talk about Medicare and Social Security reform is going to hurt grandma, consider this: half of the nation's wealth is owned by people over 55

Ryan Streeter
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Robert Samuelson's Post column today should have the effect of diluting the rampant "Mediscare" rhetoric on the Left (I said "should," not that it "will"). Poor old grandma, it turns out, isn't so poor.

Paul Ryan and the Republicans have been adamant that the GOP's plan won't affect people over the age of 55. Liberals continue to demagogue the issue (which Republicans once-upon-a-recent-time have also done), even though - were the plan adopted - the reforms wouldn't kick in for a decade.

The reality of today's older population shows just how much a political calcuation the GOP plan is. In truth, many older Americans would be just fine if they had to comply with the terms of the GOP plan starting next year.

Consider the following:

• Half of the nation’s wealth is owned by people 55 and older (a third of the adult population).

• The proportion of elderly living in the “high income” group — defined as four times the poverty line, or almost $52,000 for a couple in 2009 — rose from 18.4 percent in 1980 to 30.6 percent in 2007.

• In 2007, the median net worth (that is, assets minus debts) of 65-plus households was $237,000, about twice the amount for households aged 45 to 54. Among 65-plus married couples, median net worth was $385,000.

• During the recession, 68 percent of 18 to 49 year olds reported that they “cut back spending” in the past year; for those 65-plus, that was 36 percent.

• For the richest fifth of seniors in America, Social Security accounts fo only 18 percent of their overall income on average.

Samuelson concludes this way:

People do not lose their obligations to the larger society by turning 65. We need to refocus these programs on their original purposes. Social Security was intended to prevent poverty, not finance recipients’ extra cable channels. Medicare provides peace of mind as well as health insurance; wealthier recipients can afford to pay more for their peace of mind. Burden-sharing needs to include the elderly. This is the crux of the budget problem.

He's right. But because of politics, for at least another ten years, we're going to see a lot of Social Security checks spent on those extra cable channels.

Just out: Medicare will exhaust itself 5 years ahead of schedule, and Social Security's unfunded liability is up $1.1 trillion from just last year

Ryan Streeter
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Yep, Social Security and Medicare are still in trouble - big trouble. The trustees of the programs issued their report today. The following summary is from Paul Ryan's committee office:

• The Trustees now project that Social Security has entered into a period of permanent cash deficits. That means that to pay full Social Security benefits, the government must cut spending, raise taxes, or, more realistically, borrow more money to finance pension payments.

• The 75-year actuarial imbalance has increased to 2.22 percent of payroll (up from 1.92 percent last year).

• Social Security faces a $6.5 trillion unfunded liability (up from $5.4 trillion last year.)

• The Social Security Trust Funds are expected to go insolvent in 2036, meaning that certain birth cohorts above the age of 55 can expect to see a 23 percent cut in their benefits.

• The Medicare Part A Trust Fund is expected to be exhausted in 2024, a full five years ahead of the date estimated in last year's report.

• Despite the President’s health care law, Medicare physician payments must be cut by 29.4 percent on January 1, 2012. The report calls this an “implausible expectation.”

Ryan included the following in his release:

Rather than allow opponents of reform to allow Medicare to collapse, the House-passed budget saves Medicare, making no changes for those 55 and older and offering future generations a strengthened, personalized Medicare program they can count on. It also stops the raid on the Medicare trust funds – ensuring that Medicare savings go toward saving Medicare, not creating a brand new entitlement.

Senate Democrats have failed to produce a budget yet. President Obama’s budget, with trillions in new spending, higher taxes, and more borrowing, is woefully inadequate to today’s challenges and fails to deliver needed security for America’s seniors.