Obama ad hits Romney on Medicaid

President Obama's reelection campaign hit Mitt Romney's proposed Medicaid cuts in a new television ad Tuesday.

The ad, titled "Only Choice," is the campaign's second spot focused on Medicaid — an issue that got hardly any attention until former President Clinton assailed Romney's Medicaid plan at the Democratic convention last month.

The ad focuses on Medicaid's coverage of nursing-home stays.

"For many middle-class families, Medicaid is the only way to afford the care," the Obama ad says. "But as a governor, Mitt Romney raised nursing home fees eight times. And as president, his budget cuts Medicaid by one-third and burdens families with the cost of nursing-home care."

Romney has proposed converting Medicaid into a block grant to the states. Such an approach would give the states more flexibility to set their own eligibility standards. Critics charge that black grants would hurt the sickest and thus most expensive patients, because they would be the easiest cost center to cut.

---