Ryan on Healthcare and Medicare

Basics:

• Accuses administration of turning Medicare into a "piggy bank for Obamacare."

• Unlike his old plan—in which the growing spending on subsidies skidded to the rate of inflation— Ryan's new plan stipulates that premium support would always be enough to cover the two cheapest plans in the market.

• At the moment, according to the CBO, it remains unclear about whether or not the new plan would incur greater costs to beneficiaries, and to what degree.

• Says of Obama-Biden's "Forward" slogan that it leads "Forward into a future where seniors are denied the care they earned because a bureaucrat decided it wasn't worth the money."

Fact check:

Ryan was one of the first to jumpstart the GOP's "Medicare raid" meme, which alleges that Obama is about to rob Medicare to the tune of $7 billion, in order to pay for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In fact, the oft-cited $700 billion figure represents the savings the ACA yields over 10 years by reducing Medicare spending, and it's chiefly the providers rather than beneficiaries who pony up to finance the long-term spending cut.

Read more: "Obama, Ryan trade blows on Medicare, Healthcare" (CNN)