GOP's Pitch To Seniors, Part Two

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is continuing to push his "seniors' health care bill of rights," first suggested last week in a Washington Post op-ed, in a new minute-long TV ad that's airing nationally on cable and in Florida, the official home of seniors, starting today.


The idea seemed like a bit of a flop after the op-ed, but Steele is pressing on--the idea, it appears, is for the GOP to push bipartisanship.

"When you disagree with Washington, how come they act like it's your problem? That's what the Democrats have done with health care," Steele says to open the ad. "How about a different way, a focus on things we can all agree on?"

"Join us in supporting a new seniors' bill of rights. Let's agree in both parties that Congress should only consider health reform proposals that protect senior citizens," Steele says. Other than the opening line, it's all positively worded, with upbeat music in the background.

Steele wants everyone to agree that Medicare shouldn't be cut and that health care shouldn't be "rationed" based on age.

So if you're a Democrat, what do you say to that? Probably that proposals currently under consideration don't actually do those things--in fact, AARP backed up President Obama's reform push when Steele first made these suggestions in his op-ed, basically saying Steele misrepresented what Democrats want, and that his concerns are fictitious.

But the question of Medicare cuts is a tricky one: Democrats don't want to cut Medicare benefits, but they do want to trim spending from the program by cutting the growth in Medicare payment rates. Whether this will eventually affect services is a matter of some debate (PolitiFact deals with the question here), and the Senate Finance Committee, where legislation is being crafted in the Senate, hasn't put anything out publicly on how it will deal with Medicare since the spring, so it may not be so simple for Democrats to just say, "Sure, Michael Steele, we adopt your proposal," while snickering.

UPDATE: Since I asked, here's what a Democrat would say. From Democratic National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse, in response to Steele's ad:

"Michael Steele and the Republicans are unbelievable.  After failing to stop the President on the Recovery Act, the budget, equal pay for women and children's health care, Republicans have decided that they have no other choice when it comes to blocking health insurance reform than to lie to the American people and try to scare seniors - all in their admitted effort to 'break' the President on this issue and 'kill' reform for political gain.   
 
"But, Michael Steele takes the cake - appearing in an ad today promising 'zero' cuts to Medicare less than 24 hours after he told ABC's Top Line, that 'absolutely' there needed to be efficiencies and an elimination of waste in Medicare - which is exactly what President Obama and Democrats have proposed.  The RNC's 'Senior's Bill Of Rights' is nothing more than a scare tactic built on a foundation of lies about the effort to reform health insurance.  Which begs the question, why can't Republicans debate health insurance reform on the merits instead of making stuff up out of whole cloth?  Because they know the crux of what President Obama has proposed - lowering costs, preserving choice, expanding access and reversing decades of unfair insurance industry practices - is popular with the American people and they don't stand a chance of blocking reform if they deal with the issue honestly. 
 
"Instead, Republicans have substituted scare tactics for substance and lies for the truth.  And now, the very Republicans who opposed the creation of Social Security and tried to dismantle it less than four years ago -  and the same Republicans who have worked against Medicare since its inception - are now standing up for seniors?  With all due respect to Michael Steele - that dog just won't hunt."