In the Nevada Senate debate last week, Republican Sharron Angle also criticized President Obama for his work on health care.
"Obamacare cut a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare right at the point where... senior citizens need to have that Medicare advantage," she said, adding, "The solutions to the health care insurance cost problem are simple, and they reside within the free market. We need to get the government out so we can go across state lines to choose insurance companies. We need to get the government out of the process so we can take off those mandated coverages. We need to get the government out so we can have tort reform and so we can expand the pools."
"[T]hey say there's not enough cost containment in health reform, yet in the next sentence, they say Medicare has been cut too much," noted Chris Jennings, who served as a senior health care adviser to the Clinton White House. "So if you're spending too much and there's not enough cost containment in health care, and then you're getting savings from Medicare, there's this whole question of how you reconcile those two things."
Story continues below
Advertisement
Jennings also pointed to the fact that AARP, which represents millions of senior citizens, endorsed health care reform because it strengthens the Medicare trust fund and looks for new long-term care options. "It's nice for the Chamber to be so concerned about seniors," he said, "but that has never been a big priority of the Chamber previously. On a whole lot of fronts -- including pensions and retiree health and a lot of other things -- they've specifically embraced the ability for employees to embrace retiree health care coverage altogether."
The Angle campaign didn't respond to a quest for comment, but Chamber spokesman J.P. Fielder said there was no inconsistency in the organization's ads. "It is perfectly consistent to oppose a massive expansion of government involvement in health care, while also opposing taking $500 billion from Medicare to pay for this expansion," he said.