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- NEW: President Obama says leadership means rejecting bad ideas
- NEW: Obama tells the AARP that Obamacare strengthens Medicare
- Paul Ryan will tell the group that only the GOP plan will fix Medicare
- The issue is a major one in Florida, a key battleground state
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama defended his health care reforms Friday by telling a leading advocacy group for senior citizens that Republicans are wrong when they say the 2010 measure hurts Medicare.
"Contrary to what you've heard and what you may hear from subsequent speakers, Obamacare actually strengthened Medicare," the president said, using the nickname for the Affordable Care Act that passed with no Republican support.
In an appearance by satellite at the AARP Life@50+ conference in New Orleans, Obama responded to specific attacks on the health care law by Republicans, including a later speaker at the event -- GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.
The health care law cut waste and fraud in Medicare, provides preventive care to keep people healthier and reduced prescription drug costs for seniors, Obama said.
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He called the claim by Ryan and other Republicans that $716 billion is being cut from Medicare to fund the health care bill "simply not true."
Savings come from "using the purchasing power of Medicare to say to doctors and hospitals and insurance companies: 'You guys need to work smarter,'" Obama said to applause. "Instead of having five different tests that each of you is charging for, do one test and email it to everybody."
Ryan, the conservative House Budget Committee chairman from Wisconsin, has proposed a partial privatization of the entitlement that would provide government subsidies to help senior citizens pay for coverage they would choose from a list of options.
In excerpts of his remarks released before his appearance, Ryan will call the Obamacare law "the worst of both worlds."
"It weakens Medicare for today's seniors and puts it at risk for the next generation," Ryan will say, repeating the factually challenged claim of $716 billion in Medicare cuts and also targeting a panel created under the health care law charged with recommending ways to reach targeted savings starting in 2014.
Ryan also will take a swipe at Obama's re-election slogan of "Forward," saying it means "Forward into a future where seniors are denied the care they earned because a bureaucrat decided it wasn't worth the money."
Later Friday, GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney heads to Las Vegas for a campaign event after his wife chided fellow Republicans for criticizing the former Massachusetts governor and his team.
With polls showing Romney unable to overtake Obama with less than seven weeks to go until the November election, the GOP infighting showed rising frustration over their candidate's campaign against a president saddled by high unemployment and a sluggish economy.
New figures show Obama and his allies raised nearly $85 million in August, outpacing Romney's haul in the month that included both parties' national conventions.
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In Wisconsin, conservative candidate Tommy Thompson put some of the blame for his slipping poll numbers on the Romney campaign and conservative commentators, including former GOP speechwriter Peggy Noonan, have depicted the Romney team as floundering.
"Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring," Ann Romney said of her husband's critics in an interview on Thursday with Radio Iowa.
Romney tweaked his campaign strategy twice this week in response to controversies that distracted from his main message challenging Obama's record as president.
On Thursday, he kept up attacks on Obama over a 1998 comment regarding redistribution of wealth, and also claimed the president had given up on changing Washington. The Obama camp fired back that the criticism was off base.
At the AARP event Friday, Obama said the Ryan proposal to reform Medicare would make it a voucher program that shifts health care costs to senior citizens. He noted that AARP supported the 2010 health care reform act and opposed Ryan's Medicare proposal.
"They know that a voucher program is not going to be a good deal," Obama said.
Members of AARP -- a nonprofit organization and a powerful lobbying group that boasts of having more than 37 million members -- submitted questions to the nominees on their website.
Obama also will hold a campaign event on Friday in Virginia, while Ryan heads to Florida after his AARP remarks and Romney travels west to Nevada. All three states are considered up for grabs in November.
Romney is coming off a tough stretch in the weeks before the three presidential debates in October.
Last week, the Romney campaign struggled in its initial response to anti-American violence in Libya and Egypt. Then a left-leaning magazine released secretly recorded clips of Romney speaking at a May fund-raiser in which he said 47% of Americans depended on government help, saw themselves as victims and won't support him.
Under criticism for the comments at the fund-raiser, Romney stuck by them and rallied some conservative commentators to his side by emphasizing his message on his allegation that Obama's polices increased public dependency on government.
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In particular, they accused Obama of favoring wealth redistribution -- code for socialism among conservatives -- based on the 1998 video of the president when he was a state senator in Illinois.
"I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution -- because I actually believe in some redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot," Obama says in the clip, posted Tuesday on the conservative Drudge Report website.
The White House on Wednesday characterized the GOP attacks over the redistribution comment as an effort to divert attention from Romney's remarks at the May fundraiser.
Romney also took aim at Obama's comment on Thursday at a Univision "Meet the Candidates" forum in which the president said he was unable to change Washington from within.
House Speaker John Boehner continued the Romney attack line on Friday, saying Obama and congressional Democrats lacked the leadership qualities necessary to change the culture of partisan divide and legislative gridlock.
"It takes courage, it takes determination and it takes sincerity, and it's called leadership," Boehner told reporters.
Asked about the inability to work out compromises with Republicans on deficit reduction and other major issues, Obama blamed GOP intransigence and said he was being a leader by rejecting what he called "bad ideas."
He noted that his proposals, including the health care reform measure opposed by every Republican, included some ideas with GOP origins.
"Obamacare owes a debt to what was done in Massachusetts by my opponent, Mr. Romney, even though sometimes he denies it," the president said in a jab at his challenger, who passed a similar plan while governor of the state but now vows to repeal the federal version.
"The one thing I won't do though is go along with bad ideas that are not helping the middle class," Obama said to applause, adding: "If I hear the only way Republicans in Congress are willing to move forward is to voucherize Medicare, I'll say no."
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