Heitkamp Repeating “Lie Of The Year” In Campaign Ad Attacking Rick Berg
Heidi Heitkamp has a new ad out attacking Rick Berg on Medicare.
From The Hill:
Democratic candidate for Senate in North Dakota launched a new ad on Friday that features an average North Dakotan discussing Rep. Rick Berg’s (R-N.D.) position on Medicare.
Margaret Gilmor of Fargo, N.D., addresses the camera and tells the story of her survival of breast cancer. She explains that Berg voted to increase Medicare premiums by thousands — one of the ways Democrats have characterized Republicans’ votes for Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) budget — and says “I wouldn’t be alive today if Medicare cost that much.”
Heitkamp finishes off the ad, telling viewers she approves the message “because I’ll work to strengthen Medicare, not destroy it.”
The problem with this ad is that it’s repeating what FactCheck.org called “the lie of the year.”
From the Wall Street Journal:
One of President Obama’s regular attacks on Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform is that it would force seniors to pay $6,400 a year more for health care. But merely because he keeps repeating this doesn’t mean it’s in the same area code of accurate.
The claim is based on a now out-of-date Congressional Budget Office estimate of the gap between the cost of health care a decade from now, in 2022, and the size of the House budget’s premium-support subsidy for a typical 65-year-old in 2022.
In other words, the $6,400 has no relevance for any senior today. None.
Just like Heidi Heitkamp has to pattern her campaign trail persona after Sarah Palin to cover her left-wing views, she has to mislead the public about Medicare.
Shame on Heitkamp for fear mongering instead of promoting reforms to address what even the most myopic of partisans have to admit is a run-away Medicare problem.