Republicans demand TV station yank ad claiming GOP plan would 'end Medicare'

By Greg Sargent
WashPost

Attention, people, this is important: The battle over whether it’s true that the Republican plan would “end Medicare” is about to play out in a critical way in New Hampshire.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which oversees House races for the GOP, has written a sharply-worded letter demanding that a New Hampshire TV station yank an ad making that claim. Whether the ad gets taken down could help set a precedent for whether other stations will air Dem TV ads making this argument, which is expected to be a central message for Dems in the 2012 elections.

The NRCC letter was provided to me by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is airing the ad on WMUR against GOP Rep. Charlie Bass. The letter — which calls on Comcast Boston to take down the ad and is unusually detailed and emphatic — reflects how badly Republicans want a halt to these Dem attacks. Here’s the letter’s core argument:

The Budget Resolution as approved by the U.S. House of Representatives does NOT end Medicare. In fact, the Budget Resolution makes no changes at all to Medicare for current or near retirees, as none of the Medicare-related provisions in the Budget Resolution would even take effect until 2022. This fact makes the Advertisement especially misleading, as the woman featured in the Advertisement is a current Medicare beneficiary, and would not have her Medicare benefits ended, or even changed in any way, under the Budget Resolution...

(More here.)