Fact Check: Ad Criticizes Heller's Medicare Votes - 8 News NOW

Claim: An advertisement airing on KLAS-TV Channel 8 that is sponsored by Patriot Majority, a liberal super political action committee, states: "Dean Heller, two votes to end Medicare as we know it. One big disaster for Nevada seniors."

Verdict: Partially true and partially misleading. It is true that Heller, a Republican senator seeking a full six-year term this fall, voted both as a congressman and as a senator in 2011 on a Republican budget plan that would have overhauled the Medicare program. But the ad, which claims the plan would have forced seniors to pay almost $6,000 a year in added health care costs, could mislead viewers into believing that Heller and fellow Republican had no alternative proposal. According to the same Wall Street Journal story that was referenced in the ad, the Republican plan would have applied only to Americans that last year were under age 55, so there would have been no change for existing seniors. The proposal for younger Americans would have been to give them a choice of private insurance plans when they turned 65, with the government paying the first $15,000 in premiums. Larger subsidies would have been available for poorer Americans. Heller and fellow Republicans argued that the changes were needed due to Medicare's skyrocketing costs, but the plan was shot down by Senate Democrats.