Romney and Obama spar over Medicare

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney accused President Barack Obama in person and in TV advertising yesterday of cutting Medicare "to pay for Obamacare" in a strong counterattack to Democratic charges that he and running mate Paul Ryan would radically remake the popular health care program that serves tens of millions of seniors.

The charge drew a blistering response from Obama's campaign, which labeled the ad dishonest and hypocritical.

Obama "has taken $716 billion out of the Medicare trust fund. He's raided that trust fund," Romney said at a campaign stop in Beallsville, Ohio, as he neared the end of a multistate bus trip punctuated by his weekend selection of a ticket mate.

"And you know what he did with it? He's used it to pay for Obamacare, a risky, unproven, federal takeover of health care. And If I'm president of the United States, we're putting the $716 billion back," he said.

Aides said a commercial containing the same allegation would begin airing immediately in several battleground states, although they declined to provide details.

The rival sets of ticketmates campaigned in a half-dozen hotly contested states, in settings as diverse as a coal mine in Ohio (Romney); a wind farm in Iowa (Obama), a casino in Nevada (Ryan) and in West Virginia (Vice President Joe Biden).

In a rebuttal shortly after the Romney TV ad was released, Obama spokeswoman Liz Smith said the president's health care law did not "cut a single guaranteed Medicare benefit, and Mitt Romney embraced the very same savings when he promised he'd sign Paul Ryan's budget . . . The truth is that the Romney-Ryan budget would end Medicare as we know it."

In the days leading to Ryan's selection, opinion polls generally showed a close race with Obama holding a modest advantage. Romney's pick for a running mate drew enthusiastic support from conservatives.