May 25, 2011 12:48PM # NY-26 Post Mortem By [Roger Pilon](https://www.cato.org/people/roger-pilon) --- SHARE Today POLITICO Arena asks: > Reacting to yesterday’s NY-26 election results, Paul Ryan this morning said, “I saw the ads. I saw burning people’s Medicare cards. If you can scare seniors into thinking that their current benefits are being affected, that’s going to have an effect. And that is exactly what took place here.” Do Republicans have a messaging problem on Medicare? My response: *Some* Republicans have a messaging problem — that partially explains the NY-26 result. Others, like Paul Ryan, are telling it straight, for which they should be commended. Medicare “as we know it” will soon end, as every honest analyst has recognized. If Democrats continue to demagogue the issue, we have a character problem on our hands. And if enough voters fall for that flim-flam, we have a national problem of lethal proportions. Hard reality doesn’t play politics. ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).