Campaigns trade Medicare barbs, Romney praises parts of health reform law

News outlets covered Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Barack Obama's remarks on Medicare and the health law today.

The New York Times: Romney Has Conciliatory Remarks on Obama and Health Overhaul 
Mitt Romney said Sunday that he would retain elements of President Obama's health care overhaul ... The remarks, made in an interview on the NBC News program "Meet The Press," seemed to mark the emergence of a less openly partisan, more general-election-oriented Republican nominee (Barbaro and Rutenberg, 9/9).

The Washington Post: Mitt Romney Says He Wouldn't End Every Provision In Federal Health-Care Law
Among the provisions Romney portrayed positively: ensuring coverage options for people with pre-existing conditions. "One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for individuals to have policies that cover their family up to whatever age they might like. I also want individuals to be able to buy insurance, health insurance, on their own as opposed to only being able to get it on a tax advantage basis through their company," he said (Sullivan, 9/9).

The Wall Street Journal: Campaigns Spar Over Taxes, Budget
"Our problem in our country is not that we're not paying enough taxes," Mr. Romney said. "It's that we're spending too much money and the economy is not growing as it could and should." His running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, echoed those sentiments on ABC News's "This Week" as he advocated for Republican plans to eventually offer a private option for Medicare and increase the Social Security retirement age while scaling back benefits for high-income retirees. "Economic growth, spending cuts, entitlement reforms, that's the recipe that works," Mr. Ryan said (Murray and Meckler, 9/9).

Politico: Obama on Medicare, Space In Florida 
President Obama told a crowd here that Mitt Romney's Medicare plan would take money from middle-class people in order to give it to big insurance companies. Obama's Medicare swipe – which neatly parallels his argument against Romney's tax cut proposal – comes at the third of four stops during his two-day Florida bus tour. It is based upon a report from Harvard economics professor David Cutler that the campaign distributed Sunday morning (Epstein, 9/9).

Fox News: Campaign Focus Turns To Medicare
President Obama on the offensive on Medicare campaigning in Melbourne, Florida. (President Obama) "Here's the bottom line: their voucher program for Medicare would bankrupt Medicare, our plan strengthens Medicare" (Kealy 9/9/).

Reuters: Obama Courts Florida Voters Over Medicare, Space Policy
Romney's running mate, congressman Paul Ryan, proposed a plan two years ago that would transform Medicare into a program in which recipients would use vouchers to buy private insurance (Mason, 9/9).