LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Shaky claims about Medicare were common in the 2012 campaign, from President Barack Obama on down. Now they’ve surfaced in this year’s midterm elections.
Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is opposing Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, accuses McConnell of voting to raise a retired coal miner’s Medicare costs by $6,000 in an ad released Tuesday.
He didn’t.
Don Disney of Cloverlick, Ky., appears with Grimes in the ad, looking into the camera as if speaking to McConnell and asking: “I want to know how you could’ve voted to raise my Medicare costs by $6,000. How are my wife and I supposed to afford that?”
McConnell cast no such vote. The bill he supported in 2011, on which the ad’s claim is based, proposed moving ahead on a plan in the House by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to privatize Medicare over time. Retired people or those approaching retirement — such as Disney — would see no changes.
Grimes did not back down Tuesday when asked about the ad.
