Mitt Romney Embraces Privatizing Medicare and Social Security and Raising Eligibility Ages

I'm waiting to see how Mitt Romney walks any of this back once the general election begins if he ends up winning the Republican presidential nomination because I don't see how his statements tonight on Social Security and Medicare are going to help him with seniors later on, no matter how many times he reiterates that the cuts won't affect current recipients or those over fifty five years of age. During this Monday night's Republican debate Romney apparently thinks that seniors don't care what happens to their children or grandchildren.

Romney was asked what he would do in regards to Social Security and Medicare and he started things out with one of the Republican zombie lies out there, that President Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare. Mother Jones has more on why that's just not true here -- Return of the Big GOP Medicare Lie.

He also fully endorsed raising the eligibility ages for both Social Security and Medicare, endorsed Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, means testing which turns the programs into welfare programs and block-granting Medicaid back to the states. He also seemed to completely contradict himself within the time frame of a few minutes with his follow up a little later in the debate when he said "we simply can't say we're going to go out and borrow more money to let people set up new accounts to take money away from Social Security and Medicare today." Just what does he think those "voluntary" accounts are going to do to future benefit recipients? It's bad enough the man flip flops on every issue, he couldn't even get his talking points straight within a sentence of each other.

Sadly the awful policies he was promoting here rather than raising taxes on the wealthy and raising the income cap on payroll taxes and curbing the cost of health insurance by moving to a single payer program are not anything that either interests or is supported by his fellow Republican primary contenders, or the hapless moderators asking the questions during the debate.

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[Sachmo Martinez]

wow! Natural born liar!

[daveme7]

How about paying the money back and changing the laws so iot cannot be depos8ited in the generalmbudget for overages after ourn fiscalm year ends. Overage-a real polite word. (1 billion dollars in 2010-that is an ioverage for sure. Will they pay it back plus interest-this ios then reral reason they want to churck social security because the US govtmn owes mkore to us compared to amny other budgetary concerns.

[Holly Welch]

WTF What Is worgn with you Poeple. Still Thinking voteing Mitt Romney? What About Deaf people Not all Deaf Poeple have a jobe becuse U hearing people wanna make more money and thinking that deaf people can't do anything Yes Deaf People can Do Anything The World Is Going Greenly if he did Cut SSDI And SSI We deaf Would not have home Bceuse Everywhere Rent are high Here In Colorado We Only Made 698 Every Month.Still Thinking Voteing mitt romney? what about gay or Weed?

[erick gonzalo]

Wrong. Government regulation, picking winners and losers has taken over this private/public mix that has led to cronyism.

Get government out of healthcare, the path we are taking will include more regulations, more bureaucrats getting between doctors and their patients and waiting lines.

People are also responsible, we have allowed hospitals to ask for the most expensive procedures, turns their backs around and bill the insurance companies the highest prices.

[erick gonzalo]

Don't scare seniors with your nonsense. Medicare is going to bankrupt this country in the next 10 years if we don't fix it. Romney is giving us the right prescription here. We need brave politicians that will tell us the truth, not offer us free stuff that we cannot pay for. Don't borrow from China to pay for medicare and social security, they will end up owning our land.

[MiszAmAm32]

Lol of course fox reports this.

[Jimmy Lee]

WATCH OUT SENIORS! ....THIS GUY IS BAD NEWS! WHEN IT COMES TO MEDICARE

[TheStevenson2424]

The private sector is about profit. Companies focused on profit dont care about customer service or doing whats best for the people, profits be damned. Capitalism is great...when its accompanied by humanity. Corporations only do whats best for themselves and insurance companies are the golden example of public service corrupted by profit margins!

[endtyrany]

I really don't understand how you people see a difference between republicans and democrats cause all i see are liars! Wake up people cause no matter who gets elected, we will see a different America come next year but not one that's any better!