The House Republicans’ vote to end Medicare (Reps. Tim Griffin, Steve Womack and Rick Crawford all joined this historic repudiation of a single-payer guaranteed health plan for the elderly) won’t be soon forgotten.

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Here’s another ad going up targeting the vote.

Griffin has been grasping to cover his naked exposure on the issue with the fig leaf of criticism by the fact-checking operation Politifact of an earlier Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad. Politifact’s conclusion is wrong. The Republican plan would indeed end Medicare as all Americans commonly understand the term. It ends it by moving to a voucher/subsidy system run by private insurance companies, not the more efficient government. It will cost the elderly more for less coverage, if they can get coverage at all. You can put lipstick on this pig but it’s still a pig. It may carry the name Medicare, but it will bear no resemblance when fully implemented to the social contract that has sustained millions. Politifact objects that the DCCC ad doesn’t qualify the phrase “end of Medicare” with the phrase “as we know it.” Pretty lame support for a “pants on fire” rating. The issue isn’t the name of the program but what it delivers. Republicans gut Medicare. That’s the political fact. Republicans are howling, but Democrats are not backing off. See video at top.

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