THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA: US vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan introduced his 78-year-old mother to voters as he defended the Republican ticket from withering criticism from President Barack Obama for proposals to overhaul the government's popular Medicare program that provides health care coverage to seniors.
In the week since Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced Ryan as his running mate, Medicare has become the latest flashpoint in an increasingly contentious presidential campaign.
Ryan, a deficit hawk and the House Republicans' chief budget writer, has stood out in Washington for laying out tough spending choices that many lawmakers in both parties avoid. So it was almost inevitable that his selection as running mate would vault Medicare to the top of the campaign debate.
Democrats say it's a debate they are glad to have because voters tend to trust them more than Republicans on the big social entitlements. But Obama has vulnerabilities, too, given the Medicare cuts he pushed to expand health insurance for Americans and to keep the costs of doing so in line.
The issue could determine the outcome in several critical battleground states. Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa are among the top five states in the percentage of people 65 and over, and all three are closely contested.
Medicare is a dicey issue for both sides: Obama is steering billions from the entitlement to help pay for the expansion of coverage under his health care law; Ryan is a champion of overhauling Medicare to make the traditional program no longer the mainstay for tomorrow's seniors — just one of many old-age health insurance choices.
On a day Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney devoted to raising campaign cash in Massachusetts, Ryan accused Obama on Saturday of raiding the Medicare “piggybank” to pay for his health care overhaul and he warned starkly that hospitals and nursing homes may close as a result.
The Wisconsin congressman introduced his mother to an audience of seniors at The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in central Florida, and passionately defended a program that has provided old-age security for two generations of his own family.
“She planned her retirement around this promise,” Ryan said as Betty Ryan Douglas looked on. “That's a promise we have to keep.”
Campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama said it's a promise that the Republican ticket would tear up.
Seeking to drive older voters away from Romney, Obama has seized on Ryan's plan to shift future retirees into a system dominated by private insurance plans, saying seniors would have to pay thousands of dollars more out of their pocket for their health care coverage.
