In Tele-Town Hall, Tom Perriello Spins Into Overdrive to Hide Liberal Record

Makes futile effort to portray his vote to cut Medicare, raise electricty rates as good for seniors

Democrat Tom Perriello tried to put the best face on some of his bad votes during a telephone town hall with 5th District seniors on Tuesday. But the picture Perriello painted for participants was all talking points, and no reality.

Perriello claims his vote for ObamaCare will help seniors:

"A second major issue for our seniors is wanting to make sure that their doctors remain in the Medicare system. There are those who have tried to cut Medicare reimbursement by over 20 percent to our doctors, which seems like a good way to ensure that they will not be part of the system. I have fought hard for a permanent fix to block those 20 percent cuts

We've at least gotten a temporary fix. In fact, in the healthcare reform package, we gave a 10 percent bonus payment to doctors for participating in the Medicare system in underserved areas like many of our rural communities. (Perriello Tele-Town Hall, July 20, 2010)

Reality:
Obama's Chief Medicare Actuary Estimates That Obama's Government Takeover Of Health Care Will Cut Medicare By $575 Billion.(CMS Chief Actuary Richard S. Foster, Memo, 4/22/10)

Obama Cut Medicare To Fund New Health Care Entitlement, Leaving "Fewer Options Available" When Medicare Crisis Hits. "But make no mistake -- closing Medicare's future funding gap will be harder now that some of the easier sources of savings have been tapped to finance the health care bill. Lawmakers may have to face wrenching decisions, such as raising the age of eligibility from 65. And the bill will come due at a time when a nation struggling with higher debt is even less able to pay than it is now. 'We did it for a good cause, which was the expansion of coverage,' said Palmer. ‘But down the road, when further steps have to be taken to close the Medicare deficit, then we will have fewer options available because we've already done some of the easier things.'" (Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, "FACT CHECK: Can Overhaul Save Medicare?" < span style="font-size: 10pt;">The Associated Press, 5/2/10)

ObamaCare's Medicare Cuts Will Leave Seniors With "Higher Out-Of-Pocket Costs." "The report's most sober assessments concerned Medicare. In addition to flagging provider cuts as potentially unsustainable, the report projected that reductions in payments to private Medicare Advantage plans would trigger an exodus from the popular alternative ... Seniors leaving the private plans would still have health insurance under traditional Medicare, but many might face higher out-of-pocket costs." (Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, "Report Says Health Care Will Cover More, Cost More," The Associated Press, 4/23/10)

And Push Hospitals Into The Red, "Jeopardizing Access" For Seniors. "The report projected that Medicare cuts could drive about 15 percent of hospitals and other institutional providers into the red, ‘possibly jeopardizing access' to care for seniors." (Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, "Report Says Health Care Will Cover More, Cost More," The Associated Press, 4/23/10)

ObamaCare Will Result In As Many As 50 Percent Of Seniors Enrolled In Medicare Advantage To Be Dropped. "The White House is launching its latest Willy Loman campaign to resell ObamaCare, helped by $125 million that unions and other interest groups say they'll spend to make Americans love their new entitlement. Seniors in particular should curb their enthusiasm . . . . Advantage gives almost one of four seniors private insurance options, and Democrats are about to cut its funding by some $136 billion over the next decade even as health costs rise. The Congressional Budget Office says these cuts will cause enrollment to drop by 35%, the Administration's own Medicare actuaries predict 50%, and both outfits take for granted that benefits will also decline." (Editorial, "Farewell, Medicare Advantage," The Wall Street Journal, 06/11/10)

Cuts To Medicare Advantage Will Result In Higher Premiums And Reductions In Benefits. "The insurance industry, which estimates the payment cuts from the health overhaul will total approximately $200 billion over a decade, says it can't absorb those cuts on its own, and must pass them onto customers starting next year. ‘Washington can't slash $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage and then try to shift the blame to the health plans that administer the program when those cuts inevitably result in higher premiums and benefit reductions for seniors,' said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade group." (Janet Adamy, "HHS Warns Medicare Insurers On Rates," The Wall Street Journal, 6/7/10)

Perriello says he's concerned about higher electricity rates:

"One of the things I hear about most are these huge hikes in electricity rates, for our seniors, often on a fixed income." (Perriello Tele-Town Hall, July 20, 2010)

Yet he voted for President Obama's "Cap and Trade" bill:

From CBS News:
A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."

Spin: When you vote with Nancy Pelosi 90% of the time, it's all you've got.