"No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine." – President Lyndon B. Johnson at the signing of the Medicare Bill
House Republicans Expect Trump Will Get on Board With Medicare, Social Security Cuts
WASHINGTON—House Republicans, confronted with President Donald Trump’s opposition to curbing spending on Medicare and Social Security, said Monday they were optimistic Mr. Trump would change his mind once he looks more closely at the longer term numbers.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus casually put Medicare and Medicaid in the crosshairs when asked how he plans to find the 15 billion dollars needed to fund Donald Trump’s Chinese wall. On Thursday, MSNBC’s Greta Susteren brought on the leader of the most fiscally conservative nuts in the GOP and…
via Freedom Caucus Targets Medicare To Fund Trump’s Wall — Latest from Crooks and Liars
Would Republicans sacrifice the health and welfare of the disabled, the poor and to build Donald Trump his wall? One would think not, but here is what we know. Trump was considering cancelling his meeting with the president of Mexico scheduled for next week. Why? Because Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has repeatedly made clear that Mexico will not be paying for Trump’s wall. Before Trump could make up his mind, President Enrique Peña Nieto cancelled the meeting himself. Mexico paying for the wall played well as a campaign fantasy, but in the real world it seems to have hit a sour note.
We know that Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to begin immediate work on the barrier. Therefore, someone is going to be paying for his wall. Who?
We know that Republicans are considering a special budget bill to pay for Trump’s wall. Republicans in Congress are willing to pass such a bill because they believe Trump when he says that Mexico will eventually pay for the wall. Republicans in Congress are willing to take Trump at his word even though a Google search on “People who have been stiffed by Trump” returns about 13,500,000 results. The result at the top of the list is a USA Today report that gives detailed accounts of the many people who have done work for Trump and who are still waiting to be paid. Just as Trump left numerous people holding the bag for work they had done for him, he has now convinced Republican leaders in Congress to hand that bag to the American taxpayer.
We also know how much Republicans want to cut health care. They have already voted to begin the process of cutting the Affordable Care Act. We know they want to turn Medicaid into block grants. We know Speaker Ryan’s plan, A Better Way, cuts Medicare benefits, raises the eligibility age and eventually turns it into a voucher program.
Given what we know, is it a stretch to imagine a scenario where Republicans make the cuts to health care that they have clearly told us they want to make and then take those dollars and use them to build the wall that they have clearly committed to helping Trump build? Frankly, it is not hard to imagine at all. In fact, it is frighteningly easy to imagine, too easy.
Please call your members of Congress and tell them to protect and preserve health care for the American people.
Donna Cutler, 76, recently spent a week in the hospital to address an issue with her oxygen levels. Although no surgery was required, the bill came to almost $50,000. Fortunately, Medicare covered the cost. Mrs. Cutler paid into Medicare her entire working life, including time as a teacher, and feels that Medicare works quite well…
Americans of a certain age can still hear the collective gasp that sounded throughout the world when images of Michael Jackson, he of blessed memory, appeared of him dangling his then nine month old soon over a balcony rail. After the gasp, outrage followed. Most questioned what sort of father would do such a thing.
Now, as the Republican Party dangles the lives of 43,000 Americans over the rail of the proverbial balcony the outrage should be no less, the gasp just as collective. What sort of government do that to its own people? What sort of government would knowingly put those under its care at that kind of risk?
The obvious answer is a government that is committed to cutting taxes on the wealthiest one percent of earners. Yet, even still, is a 2.8 billion dollar tax cut for 400 or so families worth the lives of 43,000 Americans?
Time will tell us which is of more worth to the Republicans. In the meantime, Americans are left dangling over the balcony rail of ACA repeal.
Paul Ryan continues his assault on Obamacare and Medicare
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) seems to be constitutionally unable to avoid making misstatements about the Affordable Care Act or Medicare, two programs he has the knives out for. He doesn’t put it that way, of course — he hides his demolition plans behind the language of “fixing” the programs, but his “fixes” resemble what Mafia dons mean when they talk about “fixing” a stoolie or a pet owner means by “fixing” a cat.
Republicans revive outrageous plan for Medicare
In April 2011, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed, in a 2012 budget blueprint, a proposal to replace traditional Medicare with vouchers. This ignited a firestorm of opposition from congressional Democrats, America’s seniors and the general public.
Back then, an analysis of the proposal by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that turning Medicare over to private insurance plans would result in a skyrocketing cost to seniors and higher administrative costs
It is astonishing that after the bashing delivered to Republicans on the “voucher” proposal in 2011 that they would be reviving it again. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep. Kevin Brady, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee, and Representative Tom Price, Chairman, Budget Committee, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, are among Republican leaders in the U.S. House who support legislation to privatize Medicare by converting it to a “premium support” system.
Just because the Republican Party has majorities in the House and Senate and a Republican President-elect, it is not a mandate to destroy Medicare with a “voucher” plan to pay outright subsidies to insurance companies who make big contributions to many members of Congress.
Randy Stuck
Southfield
This is terrifying, of course, but it’s also puzzling. $10.5 trillion over ten years? That’s a trillion dollars a year. If you eliminated the domestic discretionary budget entirely, you’d only save half a trillion bucks. So how do they do it?
Well, we’re told that the proposed budget cuts “hew closely” to a recent Heritage Foundation report, so I went and took a look. The answer, of course, is that the only way to cut that kind of money is to take a meat axe to everything, including Social Security and Medicare. Here’s a chart:
Letter to Congress from 65 health care advocacy organizations
One of the 65 organization is the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Take heart, we are not in this fight alone.
At a rally, outside U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander’s Knoxville office, cancer patients and cancer survivors were asking a question. They wanted to know what the 40% of Americans who have or who will have cancer are supposed to do when the Republicans finish their hasty repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Some in the crowd remembered the days before the ACA when health insurance companies routinely denied coverage for preexisting conditions.
Alexander said Wednesday during the Senate health committee’s nomination hearing for Tom Price to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. . .“If your local bridge were ‘very near collapse,’ the first thing you would do is send in a rescue crew to repair it temporarily so no one else is hurt,” Alexander said. “Then you would build a better bridge, or more accurately, many bridges, to replace the old bridge. Finally, when the new bridges are finished you would close the old bridge.
The Affordable Care Act is no better than a dilapidated bridge to Senator Alexander. Never mind that to some of those gathered in front of his Knoxville office, it has been the difference between life and death. For others, the difference between receiving care and facing financial ruin. While Alexander and his Republican colleagues have already condemned the bridge to destruction, Tennesseans and Americans wonder if a repair project might be a more helpful, prudent and fiscally responsible course of action.
If Senator Alexander had chosen to study civil engineering at the University of Tennessee rather than Latin American History at Vanderbilt, he might have a greater appreciation for the possibilities that bridges present for repair. The people of Knoxville could give personal testimony to the potential for repair presented by bridges. In the last two decades, two major bridges serving downtown Knoxville, the Henley Street and the Gay Street, have undergone sizeable repair projects that resulted in both being in better than new condition.
Incidentally, it is not unusual for bridges to continue to serve their purpose while being repaired and refurbished. Certainly, things slow down a little bit, but folks are still able to get to where they need to be. The Knoxville News-Sentinel article stated that health insurance premiums are unaffordable for about 15% of Tennesseans. What about the 85% who are being helped? What will happen to them when Senator Alexander and his Republican colleagues finish with their demolition job? The Congressional Budget Office projects somewhere upwards of 18 million Americans will be without health insurance and premiums will be nearly unbearable for those who are able find a policy. What about those people with preexisting conditions who will not be able to buy health insurance no matter what it costs?
Few people would argue against making improvements or “repairs” to our health insurance system, but tearing the whole thing down and then waiting for Washington to rebuild it does not seem like the best course of action for the American people.
With all the good that the Affordable Care Act has done for so many Americans, why tear the whole thing down? Why not repair it?
When the Republicans build it back, will still do all the good things it does now? Listening to Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, or new Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee, Tom Price, one could rightfully conclude that the new bridge will be much more profitable for the health care industry and less accommodating to those seeking to utilize it.
#HandsOffMedicare 