Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan Medicare Plans ‘Close to Identical’
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Mitt Romney will probably be hearing it from Democrats soon after telling a Green Bay, Wis., TV station that his Medicare plan is “close to identical” to Paul Ryan’s plan.
In an interview with ABC News affiliate WBAY-TV, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said, “Actually, Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare is the same. If not identical, it’s probably close to identical.”
“Our plan is very simple, which is, that for people 55 years of age and older there’s no change,” Romney said. “The only change I’d mention is we’d restore the $817 billion President Obama took out of the Medicare trust fund. We’d restore it to Medicare.”
When Romney selected Ryan as his running mate, his campaign went to great lengths to make it clear that Romney would be pushing his own plan and not Ryan’s, which would turn Medicare into a more market-based system.
But Romney continued to refer to his and Ryan’s singular plan at multiple points during the interview.
“What Paul Ryan and my plan would do for people 55 and young [is] expand that program so they have the option to take advantage of that kind of private sector plan, or a governmental plan,” Romney said.
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