Evan McMorris-Santoro May 12, 2011, 4:38 PM

Well, that didn’t last long.

At nearly the exact same time 42 House Republicans were calling on President Obama to stop the heated rhetoric about their Medicare plan Wednesday, the National Republican Congressional Committee announced a new ad in California that accused a Democrat of “bankrupting Medicare” and putting benefits in jeopardy.

Here’s the script for the ad, that will run in California’s 11th District, against Rep. Jerry McNerney (D):

Who do you trust with personal health care decisions? Your own doctor.

But if Jerry McNerney gets his way, that could change.

McNerney and President Obama’s Medicare plan empowers bureaucrats to interfere with doctors, risking seniors’ access to treatment.

Now, Obama’s budget plan lets Medicare go bankrupt: that’d mean big cuts to benefits.

Tell McNerney to stop bankrupting Medicare.

And here’s the video:

The Contra Costa Times reports the ad is set to go up on Friday, just days after the letter from House Republicans begged Democrats to lay off the attacks on their budget, which ends Medicare as it’s known today.

From the letter: “We ask that you stand above partisanship, condemn the disingenuous attacks and work with this Congress to reform spending on entitlement programs.”

The Times reports that the new NRCC ad fits the “disingenuous attacks” bill pretty handily. From the paper:

[T]he ad’s claims seem shaky. FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan project of Annenburg Public Policy Center, last week debunked the claim that President Obama’s budget proposal commits seniors to bureaucratically rationed health care: The new health care law states that the advisory board to which Republicans have referred “shall not include any recommendation to ration health care” and is to consist primarily of doctors, economists and other outside experts, not Washington bureaucrats.

“FactCheck.org also refuted the claim that healthcare reforms recently enacted won’t improve Medicare’s finances: It does, though experts worry some cost controls won’t be fully implemented,” the paper writes. “Meanwhile, Ryan’s budget keeps in place some of those same cost controls.”

Asked to comment on the juxtaposition between the letter and the ad, NRCC spokesperson Tyler Houlton told TPM “timing had no factor in our decision to run this ad.”

As Politico reported Thursday, the California ad is part of a wider Republican effort to get back on the side of voters when it comes to Medicare after losing many of them when they passed the House budget.

The NRCC denied it was engaging in “MediScare” tactics with the new spot.

“This ad highlights exactly what the Democrats’ plan will do,” Houlton said. “Their plan empowers bureaucrats to interfere with doctors and endangers seniors’ access to their healthcare, while putting Medicare on a road to bankruptcy.”

CA-11, Medicare, NRCC