Sen. John Kerry: We cut $550 billion from Medicare

by NW Spotlight

Rob Cornilles, running in the special election to replace David Wu in Congress, calls out his opponent for supporting $500 billion in cuts to Medicare

At his general election campaign kickoff, Rob Cornilles called out his opponent for supporting the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), with its $500 billion cut to Medicare: “Senator Bonamici says she supports the $500 billion cut to Medicare passed last year, which will come largely out of a program called Medicare Advantage.”

The very biased PolitiFact¹ at the Oregonian and the Democratic Party of Oregon² jumped to Bonamici’s defense. After admitting that “The Affordable Care Act does reduce Medicare spending by $500 billion”, PolitiFact went on to rate Rob Cornilles’ statement as false, after further acknowledging that the Oregonian itself had written about the $500 billion cut to Medicare back in July 2009.

Well, in addition to the Oregonian’s 2009 article, Rob Cornilles got support from an unlikely source: Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the 2004 Democratic candidate for President. An article that ran recently on Newsmax mentioned Kerry’s remarks in the Sunday talk shows: “Sen. John Kerry, [Sen. Jon] Kyl’s Democratic counterpart on the supercommittee, tried to rebut that assertion from the senator from Arizona by claiming that Democrats cut $550 billion from Medicare in Obamacare without raising taxes.”

Sen. Kerry can be seen stating that “We Cut $550 Billion In The Health Care Act From Medicare” on Meet The Press, and stating that “We just cut $550 billion out of Medicare during the Health Care reform Act” in an interview on Fox.

Other sources:

¹Politifact
²Democratic Party of Oregon