CUT MEDICARE. LOSE ELECTION!!!!!!!

Catherine · **Posted:** Mon May 23, 2011 3:55 pm

FAIR WARNING!

CUT MEDICARE, LOSE ELECTION!

WASHINGTON -- A coalition of progressive groups is warning swing state Democrats to think twice before embracing parts of the Republican budget plan that would privatize Medicare and cut Medicaid.

Armed with a stark set of polls they plan to release this week, the groups -- Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, MoveOn.org and Credo Action -- are telling Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Jon Tester (Mont.), and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) to stand tall on the popular social safety net programs.

"Democrats need to say firmly that any tampering whatsoever with Medicare and Medicaid benefits is off the table," said Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America's political director.

All four of the senators are up for reelection in 2012.

McCaskill's Missouri shows the largest divide in surveys done by the Democratically friendly Public Policy Polling, especially on Medicare. When asked, "In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Medicare, which is the government health insurance program for the elderly?" just 19 percent of respondents said they would, while an overwhelming 77 percent said they would oppose cuts.

Similarly, 20 percent back cuts in Brown's Ohio, while 76 percent oppose them. In Tester's Montana, it's 24 percent favoring cuts and 71 percent against. Just 26 percent of Minnesotans would want Klobuchar to vote to cut Medicare, while 69 percent say to vote against.

The numbers are almost as sharp on support for cutting Medicaid in all four states: Ohio is 33 percent in favor to 61 percent against; Missouri is 32 percent to 63 percent; Montana is 36 percent to 59 percent; and Minnesota 33 to 62 percent.
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The GOP budget proposal penned by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released in April advises turning Medicaid into a grant program run by the states, while the federal government would subsidize retirees buy Medicare plans themselves in the private health insurance market. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that seniors' medical costs would rise twice as fast under the GOP Medicare plan as they are rising now, hitting more than $12,000 in out-of-pocket costs in 2021.

Democrats have been pounding the GOP relentlessly on the issue, and it's become a central issue in Tuesday's special election in New York's Republican-leaning 26th Congressional District, where the Democrat took the lead over the weekend.

The Democratic Party is showing no signs of letting up, but the progressive groups wanted to remind the swing-state senators that moving toward the GOP position could hurt them as they head into their campaigns.

"Democrats are right to blast Republicans for supporting Paul Ryan’s plan to eliminate Medicare," said Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "This polling shows that Democratic incumbents facing re-election in 2012 will have overwhelming support if they defend Medicare and Medicaid -- and will have serious problems if they vote to cut either program in any way."

Some critics have downplayed the results of PPP polling as favoring Democrats, but the questions in these surveys were modeled on the well-regarded ABC News/Washington Post survey, which found similar results nationally in late April, with just 21 percent supporting Medicare cuts and 30 percent supporting Medicaid cuts.

The PPP surveys had margins of error ranging from 2.6 percent to 3.1 percent.

Catherine · **Posted:** Wed May 25, 2011 11:25 am

With the Democratic win in New York's 26th Congressional District yesterday, the Dems say they're going to use the same message across the country.....and they've got Mitt Romney first on their vulnerable list:

As Chrysler Pays Up, Democrats Call On Republicans To Say Sorry

Could Republicans be in for a hard time next year now that the auto industry is struggling back to its feet? Democrats say yes. On a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters, former Democratic Govs. Jennifer Granholm (MI) and Ted Strickland (OH) said voters in their states are enjoying thousands of new jobs thanks to the auto industry bailout Republicans (these days, anyway) love to hate.

And with Chrysler completing its repayment of $7.6 billion in federal loans six years early, Democrats say the Republicans running for president -- all of whom slammed the bailout program, they say -- have found themselves on the wrong side on what has turned out to be a successful jobs program.

"Midwestern families would have been left out in the cold: no job, no income, no industry" if Republican bailout foes had their way, Granholm said. "And these voters are not going to forget it."

The Democrats on the call had a field day reminiscing about Mitt Romney's 2008 New York Times op-ed, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," in which the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination said American automakers would be on a "suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses" if a bailout plan went ahead.

MORE AT THE LINK

Catherine · **Posted:** Sun May 29, 2011 8:52 am

Despite What Boehner Says, Republicans Have Voted To Cut Medicare, Repeatedly

The words "voted to" could come back to haunt House Speaker John Boehner.

In his weekly Capitol briefing with reporters Thursday, Boehner made an unmistakably false claim. "The only people in Washington, DC who have voted to cut Medicare have been the Democrats when they voted to cut $500 billion in Medicare during Obamacare," he said. Given a chance to walk it back, Boehner's spokesman did not.

Even if you leave out the key modifier "voted to" this is far from true. Both parties have actually "cut" Medicare many times over the years. Republicans in particular haven't just voted for cuts, but passed legislation that presidents either signed or vetoed.

That happened repeatedly in the 1990s, as laid out in detail here. In late 1995 and early 1996, it precipitated a government shutdown. In 1997, it resulted in the Balanced Budget Act.

But if you leave the modifier in, this turns into a huge whopper.

Not only did Republicans vote aspirationally to cut Medicare -- in both the near and short term, and by huge amounts -- in their dead-on-arrival budget this year, they've arguably made cutting Medicare a hallmark of what it means to be a Republican.

Here's a brief, incomplete recap of how that's played out in recent years.

The House GOP budget -- which an overwhelming majority of Republicans in both chambers voted for -- would cut Medicare in the near-term by repealing the new health care law. That would re-open the prescription drug donut hole, and rescind new guaranteed wellness benefits for seniors. It would also maintain the health care law's $500 billion Medicare cuts -- principally over-payments to private insurers participating in Medicare advantage.

It would impose much, much larger cuts in the long term. Setting aside the privatization scheme, the government saves money under the plan principally by capping Medicare spending (the value of the subsidies to private insurers) and pegging that cap to inflation -- way below the rate of growth of medical costs. That's a cut no matter how you slice it.

They've been at this very plan for some time.

In 2009, 137 or their 178-member minority, including Boehner, voted for the Republican alternative budget, authored by -- whom else -- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). That budget will sound familiar. It "[p]reserves the current Medicare program for individuals 55 and older. For those under 55, the resolution gradually converts the current Medicare program into one in which Medicare beneficiaries receive a premium support payment -- equivalent to 100 percent of the cost of the Medicare benefit -- to purchase health coverage from a menu of Medicare-approved plans, similar to options available to members of Congress."

The plan also reduced the prescription drug benefit for seniors with household incomes over $170,000

Despite the similarities to the current GOP budget, dozens of Republicans defected from this plan, including many members -- like Dean Heller (R-NV) and Pete King (R-NY) to name two -- who just walked the plank on the 2011 version.

In 2007, a similar story played out when 159 of their 202-member minority, including Boehner, voted for Ryan's alternative. That version of his plan would have capped Medicare spending and cut it relative to the growth of health care costs, and would have imposed further means testing of the program. It didn't lay out the precise privatization scheme included in the 2009 and 2011 Republican budgets, but it envisioned "a reform strategy that will advance the transformation of Medicare into a vital and flexible program that can meet its mission without imposing unmanageable burdens on the Nation's medical community, and its economy."

Republicans have been at this about as long as there's been Medicare. But from time to time they make it obvious. In the 1990s, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed a milder version of the current Medicare phase out policy. His version would have preserved traditional Medicare as an option alongside a privatized program, and incentivized seniors to drop out of the government plan. Here's how he famously described it in a speech to Blue Cross in 1996. "[W]e don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that's politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine because we think people are going to voluntarily leave it."

These votes were mostly about positioning. To the extent that they could succeed, they would have loved to, but the main ideas were to stake out bargaining stance, and draw a distinction between the GOP and the Democrats. But that's precisely the point: if they had their way -- if Congress was a parliament and Boehner was Prime Minister-- this is what they would do.

Catherine · **Posted:** Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:15 am

Keith Olbermann Issues Blistering Warning To Obama Over Potential Cuts To Social Security And Medicare (VIDEO)
:bounce:

Keith Olbermann tore into President Obama for contemplating a compromise with the Republicans over the debt ceiling that includes cuts in Social Security and major changes to Medicare.

Obama has repeatedly offered to raise the age of Medicare eligibility, and has put Social Security cuts firmly on the table in his attempts to craft a deal with the GOP to raise the debt ceiling.

In a Special Comment on his Monday show, Olbermann spoke out strongly against any tinkering with Medicare and Social Security. He delivered what he called a "sermon" about what he called America's "greatest accomplishment": the social safety net that includes the two programs.

Olbermann then issued a stinging warning to President Obama about what might occur if he agreed to alter Medicare and Social Security:

"I cannot foresee what will happen politically if you craft a compromise to a manufactured political crisis ... I cannot forecast if you have made yourself unelectable next year or if there's just enough greed and self-serving amnesia to reduce such an attack on that safety net to a political blip ... I find I cannot forecast if the rest of us, battered by your compromises here and your 'it's a start's' there, will bother any longer to defend you. I find I can't forecast if I will still be able to support you ... if this deal with the Republicans takes a dollar away from those people who do not have a dollar to spare while preserving the millions for those who have millions more, if this deal, sir, keeps intact funding the mechanisms we have for killing people while cutting the mechanisms we have for keeping people alive and healthy, then it is a betrayal of everything that makes this country great."

WATCH:

Catherine · **Posted:** Wed Jul 13, 2011 10:26 am

Well, looks like Obama's fundraising is doing well....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/1 ... 96813.html

Obama Fundraising For 2012 Campaign, DNC Breaks Record

Not sure if this is a good thing or not, especially since he's proven to be so spineless and we're still not sure what is going to be the outcome of the budget talks.

King Fisher · **Posted:** Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:14 pm

He may pad the re-election campaign with the millions... But, if he insists in cutting Social Security, Medicare, and other benefits, the millions will not get him elected. I'm with Keith Olbermann, I will not force myself to vote for him.

dori · **Posted:** Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:17 pm

Great piece by Olbermann. Thank you Catherine.

Are we all telling the White House that Obama's plans will definately lose our votes? I won't vote R, but I will write in someone else's name. And many people will just stay home.

We have to keep telling the White House that!

Catherine · **Posted:** Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:28 pm

OBAMA is going to have to work mighty hard to convince me that he should be given a second term, although I cannot stomach the possibility of the Rethugs taking the White House and the Congress again. We're in deep doodoo if they do, although we've certainly not got much of a line of defense against them now, with Obama and Reid bending over at every turn so the Rethugs can kick their asses one more time. :evil:

Check this out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/0 ... 18442.html

yankhadenuf · **Joined:** Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:12 pm **Posts:** 610

Plane circling overhead at Ryan event in The Villages, FL 8/18/12 has a banner: "Paul Ryan: keep your hands off our Medicare!"

https://twitter.com/Rebecca_CBSNJ/statu ... 92/photo/1

Catherine · **Posted:** Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:27 pm

EVERYTHING IN THIS THREAD IS COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY CORRECT, and I am very grateful that it's stayed alive as long as it has. I HOPE you all will add to it as we approach November. The bottom line is that every person who will be effected NEGATIVELY by any cuts in Medicare and Social Security MUST GET OUT AND VOTE AGAINST THOSE CUTS! GET OUT THE VOTE, BECAUSE IF WE DON'T VOTE WE HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT OURSELVES.

CUT MEDICARE. LOSE ELECTION!!!!!!!

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