In a widely anticipated move, the Obama campaign released a new Internet video on Monday attacking Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan on proposed cuts to Medicare.
The new video, which is titled “What do Floridians think about the Romney-Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it,” features Florida residents interviewed by the campaign. “It doesn't make any sense to cut Medicare,” says one woman. “If we cut it now, what’s going to happen to our middle class?”
Romney has endorsed Ryan’s budget plan, which calls for a reform of Medicare that Democrats have alleged ends the program in its current form. Republicans believe they can blunt the attacks by noting that the 2010 Affordable Care Act also made cuts to Medicare. They allege President Obama “stole” money from Medicare to fund health care reform.
The video also includes a white-haired woman who says, “It will be a voucher plan.” Republicans have rejected that characterization, saying that the plan is actually “premium support.”
“Those kinds of cuts are going to be very painful to the working-class person, because we’re going to be the ones paying for it,” says one man sporting a white-beard.
Romney will take his campaign to Florida on Monday, minus Ryan, who is campaigning in Iowa.
Amanda Hennenberg, a Romney spokesperson disputed the video, saying in an email: "There’s only one candidate in this race who has cut Medicare for today’s seniors by hundreds of billions of dollars, and that’s President Obama."