Rick Santorum: GOP must push back on Dems' "absurd" Medicare claims
Possible presidential hopeful Rick Santorum expects health care to be the top issue for voters in next year's presidential election and says Republicans in Congress should be doing a better job of explaining the GOP position on Medicare.
The conservative former senator from Pennsylvania said House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor should push back more aggressively against Democratic charges that Republicans want to push "Grandma off a cliff," as he put it -- a notion Santorum called "absurd."
"It drives me crazy," Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, said Wednesday in an interview with the CBS News editorial board in New York and via video-link with journalists in Washington.
"It drives me crazy that we are out there running around chasing our tails defending this when seniors are doing it right now and are perfectly happy with what they are doing and we aren't talking about it," he said.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a substantial overhaul to the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly. His budget proposal to eventually turn the fee-for-service program into a voucher system that patients would use to buy subsidized health insurance from private insurers has been sharply criticized by Democrats.
Santorum plans to formally announce his presidential candidacy on Monday in Pennsylvania. He took a shot at one rival in his conversation with CBS News.
"Contrary to certain presidential candidates on the Republican side, this is not Republican social engineering. This is how insurance is purchased by every working American," Santorum said, referring to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was apologized to Ryan last month after he called the Wisconsin lawmaker's plan "right-wing social engineering."
Asked if he thinks health care is the number one issue for voters, Santorum said: "I do, because I think it's central to the problems we are having in our economy ...the cost of this healthcare system is a drag on our economy."
Santorum said voters are looking for a candidate who can be seen as authentic and tell them the truth about the problems facing the United States.