Medicare works, leave it alone
Beware, anyone who is old or disabled or might ever get old or disabled. If the Republicans in theUnited States House of Representative have their way, Medicare is going to be destroyed. The Paul Ryan plan, the so-called Path to Prosperity, privatizes Medicare and turns it into a voucher program that would hurt the old, the future old, and the disabled.
As USA Today reporter Catalina Camia wrote on April 12, “Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities, would be turned over to private insurers under Ryan’s budget plan and would end up costing beneficiaries more money or give them less in services.”
Why would our Republican members of Congress do this to the old and the vulnerable?
They claim that it will save seniors money and allow them to choose. However, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says it will actually cost seniors more. How much more? The CBO says it would double the cost of insurance for seniors. And that is just for starters.
My mother is 87 and very ill. How in the world is she supposed to “shop around” for a good insurance deal, and what for-profit company would ever choose to insure her? Under Medicare, my mom already gets to choose. She has chosen her doctors, her hospital and her hospice. The Republicans are deliberately misleading people about this.
Republicans also claim that this will somehow drive down costs because they claim that Medicare issues blank checks and does not try to control costs. That also is false. Medicare operating costs run between 3 percent to 7 percent for overhead, while private insurance companies have been passing their overhead costs of up to 37 percent to their customers.
As the April 18, USA Today Editorial stated about Medicare: “In fact, it delivers coverage for lower costs. Doing away with the most efficient system hardly seems the best way… ”
Medicare also has set reimbursement rates for hospitals and providers, which helps save money.
Still, they must do better with our money, so I am pleased that the new health care law gets tougher on waste, fraud, and inefficiency.
Improving a great system is better than destroying it, but our members of Congress voted to destroy Medicare.
Paul Ryan and our members claim this does not hurt seniors or those who are 55 and older. This, too, is false. Their plan slashed Medicaid, and the elderly who cannot afford to pay for nursing home care use Medicaid. As a matter of fact, 25 percent of Medicaid dollars are spent on seniors, and 42 percent is spent on the disabled. That equals 67 percent of the Medicaid budget! This opens up another problem for middle-class Americans. If the Federal Government is not going to help pay for the nursing home, where will the money come from? Most hardworking middle class families will not be able to pay for their parents and pay for their children’s educations. The squeeze will just be too much, so this Medicare and Medicaid slashing will hurt all ages.
Here is the ugliest part of all. This budget plan that both of our New Hampshire congressmen voted for hurts the old and the disabled and the middle class, and our representatives admit it by saying there has to be “shared sacrifice.”
However, the money that they save will not be used to pay down the deficit. No, it will be used to cut taxes for the very rich. That’s right – the very rich will see their taxes reduced while you or your loved one see essential services reduced.
Is this what Americans really want? Apparently, it is not. Across the country, good people of all parties – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – are showing up at town halls and telling their members to leave Medicare and other essential programs alone, that they want to support programs that help their neighbors and communities, that they care about each other. House Republicans miscalculated when they figured that most people only care about themselves, so seniors would not speak up for others. Turns out they were wrong.
Just as I have always believed, we are a great nation full of great people who help each other. It is the American way. So is Medicare. Leave it alone, House Republicans.
Find the money to pay down the debt by voting against tax loopholes, taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and other huge conglomerates, by cutting waste, and by campaign finance reform, which will clean up abuse. But leave Medicare alone.
Showing posts with label Carol Shea-Porter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carol Shea-Porter. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Recent Columns from Carol Shea-Porter: No. 2 of 3 - "Where are the Jobs?""
Where are the jobs?
Where are the jobs? This is the burning question of our time because we have so many people unemployed. The economy has a mix of good signs--such as continuous private sector job growth for 15 straight months and manufacturing up for 22 months now. This is great news, but we still have a high unemployment rate. So the questions remain. Where did the jobs go, and when will they come back?
We have to look in the rearview mirror to clearly see where we are now. The first devastating blow was when US corporations sent jobs overseas. The US Chamber of Commerce, which is different from the local Chambers, has been an enthusiastic proponent of sending jobs overseas, and also happens to be the top group making outside expenditures in 2010, running ads and engaging in other activities to sway the electorate about candidates and issues. They have too much influence on policy, and for too long, Congress has not forcefully acted against unfair trade policies and created enough incentives to keep American jobs in America.
During the Bush era, we lost 1/3 of our manufacturing jobs. However, the biggest whack came in October 2008 when Wall Street bankers did themselves in, taking down small banks and workers and retirees along with them. America lost more than 700,000 jobs just in the month of December 2008, the last full month before Barack Obama became president. The economy was reeling, and it looked as if the world was on the verge of another depression. Thankfully, policies enacted by the 111th Congress and President Obama pulled us back from a depression, but we lost eight million jobs, and that has created great suffering.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, called the Stimulus, was passed by Congress in February 2009. Congress faced a very difficult choice. It raised the already largest debt in history that President Obama had inherited from the previous administration, but it also created or saved jobs and funded projects around the country. The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed again that the Stimulus did help by keeping the unemployment rate from climbing even higher. I always believed that 1/3 of the stimulus money should have been used for a jobs program to build and repair infrastructure. This would have served two purposes--it would have brought jobs and money to our communities and rebuilt our failing infrastructure, so I view that as a missed opportunity.
Congress also passed and President Obama signed the HIRE Act and the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act. The latter bill brought more money to community banks, which in turn lent it to the small businesses that had trouble getting credit from the very big banks who had created the mess in the first place. Congress beefed up the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the SBA worked very closely with businesses around the country. Small businesses still need help, so I am very concerned that the current US House Majority has actually cut the SBA budget and programs to help small businesses.
The situation is not as dire as it was in 2008 and 2009, but high unemployment persists and is wreaking havoc on many families. What is the solution? There are many steps America must take to address unemployment. First, the current Congress has to start working on a jobs bill. They have not passed a single jobs bill out of the House yet—not one! At the same time, they are trying to pass Free Trade Agreements with Columbia and Korea, which will instead cause more job losses.
We need to provide tax incentives for manufacturing to keep jobs here. We need to make things instead of always importing them. We need to stop providing subsidies for companies that take jobs overseas. We need to find and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy that hurts business. And yes, government still has a role to play in job creation and preservation. There are many public sector jobs that are essential to the health, safety, and well-being of our communities. We should not be shortsighted and eliminate those jobs. We still have children to teach, fires to put out, criminals to catch, roads to fix, bridges to repair, airports to maintain, etc.
We should not dismantle this great country by dismantling our great workforce. If we truly want to end unemployment in our country, we must set aside our political differences and concentrate on what is best for our people, not for our politics.
Where are the jobs? This is the burning question of our time because we have so many people unemployed. The economy has a mix of good signs--such as continuous private sector job growth for 15 straight months and manufacturing up for 22 months now. This is great news, but we still have a high unemployment rate. So the questions remain. Where did the jobs go, and when will they come back?
We have to look in the rearview mirror to clearly see where we are now. The first devastating blow was when US corporations sent jobs overseas. The US Chamber of Commerce, which is different from the local Chambers, has been an enthusiastic proponent of sending jobs overseas, and also happens to be the top group making outside expenditures in 2010, running ads and engaging in other activities to sway the electorate about candidates and issues. They have too much influence on policy, and for too long, Congress has not forcefully acted against unfair trade policies and created enough incentives to keep American jobs in America.
During the Bush era, we lost 1/3 of our manufacturing jobs. However, the biggest whack came in October 2008 when Wall Street bankers did themselves in, taking down small banks and workers and retirees along with them. America lost more than 700,000 jobs just in the month of December 2008, the last full month before Barack Obama became president. The economy was reeling, and it looked as if the world was on the verge of another depression. Thankfully, policies enacted by the 111th Congress and President Obama pulled us back from a depression, but we lost eight million jobs, and that has created great suffering.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, called the Stimulus, was passed by Congress in February 2009. Congress faced a very difficult choice. It raised the already largest debt in history that President Obama had inherited from the previous administration, but it also created or saved jobs and funded projects around the country. The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed again that the Stimulus did help by keeping the unemployment rate from climbing even higher. I always believed that 1/3 of the stimulus money should have been used for a jobs program to build and repair infrastructure. This would have served two purposes--it would have brought jobs and money to our communities and rebuilt our failing infrastructure, so I view that as a missed opportunity.
Congress also passed and President Obama signed the HIRE Act and the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act. The latter bill brought more money to community banks, which in turn lent it to the small businesses that had trouble getting credit from the very big banks who had created the mess in the first place. Congress beefed up the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the SBA worked very closely with businesses around the country. Small businesses still need help, so I am very concerned that the current US House Majority has actually cut the SBA budget and programs to help small businesses.
The situation is not as dire as it was in 2008 and 2009, but high unemployment persists and is wreaking havoc on many families. What is the solution? There are many steps America must take to address unemployment. First, the current Congress has to start working on a jobs bill. They have not passed a single jobs bill out of the House yet—not one! At the same time, they are trying to pass Free Trade Agreements with Columbia and Korea, which will instead cause more job losses.
We need to provide tax incentives for manufacturing to keep jobs here. We need to make things instead of always importing them. We need to stop providing subsidies for companies that take jobs overseas. We need to find and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy that hurts business. And yes, government still has a role to play in job creation and preservation. There are many public sector jobs that are essential to the health, safety, and well-being of our communities. We should not be shortsighted and eliminate those jobs. We still have children to teach, fires to put out, criminals to catch, roads to fix, bridges to repair, airports to maintain, etc.
We should not dismantle this great country by dismantling our great workforce. If we truly want to end unemployment in our country, we must set aside our political differences and concentrate on what is best for our people, not for our politics.
Recent Columns from Carol Shea-Porter: No. 1 of 3 - "What's Really Behind Debt-Ceiling Politics"
What’s really behind debt-ceiling politics
The debt limit debate has become a sign of all that is wrong in Congress these days. This Congress, the most partisan in recent history and, as the LA Times notes, “underperforming even the ‘do-nothing Congress’ of 1948,” simply cannot stay at work long enough or even work together to get the job done. As NH Senator Kelly Ayotte commented in that July 3 article, “I thought we would vote on a lot more bills.” Yes, so did we. At least, we thought they could vote on the looming debt ceiling vote before our country defaulted, but the deadline, August 2, is getting too close for comfort, and Congress had to be shamed into coming back to work this week to even argue about it. They have not passed a single jobs bill, which is a disaster for the millions of unemployed in this country, but if they let America default on its debts, the consequences would reverberate in the markets around the world.
As Ronald Reagan said in 1983, “the full consequences of a default, or even the serious prospect of default by the United States, are impossible and awesome to contemplate.” In 1987, Reagan called refusing to raise the debt ceiling “brinksmanship” that “threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.”
Fast-forward to today. In Atlanta Business Chronicle, US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue said: “…the country cannot afford to not pay its bills. To those newly-elected representatives who say they aren’t going to raise the debt ceiling and will shut down government, Donahue said the U.S. Chamber has its own message: We’ll get rid of you.” This is pretty serious stuff. When Republican icons from the past and the head of the US Chamber are warning Republican leaders of dire consequences if they don’t raise the debt ceiling and default, why isn’t Congress listening?
Sadly, the answer lies in politics. Political ideology trumps reality. Republicans are so against any kind of tax on the wealthy that they voted repeatedly to increase the ceiling through the Bush years rather than raise revenue to pay for their spending. As USA Today stated in their July 5 editorial, “…the nation has used trillions of dollars in borrowed money to finance two wars, Medicare’s prescription drug program, and President George W. Bush’s broad tax cuts—all initiated with the GOP controlling both the White House and Congress. Now Republicans have belatedly decided that borrowing is bad too, but they dogmatically resist even the most sensible and painless tax hikes.”
The Republicans are so opposed to either collecting any income tax from GE and other corporations, or stopping taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and other special interests, that they are refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to slash Social Security, Medicare, education, housing, transportation funding, infrastructure, research, healthcare, or anything else that actually benefits communities and the middle class. They tell people through mailers and tele-town halls that they have to reduce benefits to save Social Security, all the while knowing that Social Security is solvent enough to fully pay benefits until 2036, and is not contributing to the debt at all right now.
Republican members are also misleading the middle class and small businesses by asking them if they want to pay more taxes, and then reporting back the answer was no. Of course it is no. The middle is tired of paying for the breaks the tax structure gives to the top 1% and multinational corporations. NOBODY is talking about raising the taxes on the middle class, and Republicans know that. They are misleading the public and distracting them from the real issue. Their ideology and agenda will not allow them to raise revenue to help us dig out of this mountain of debt that their ideology got us in. Democrats do not get a free pass on the debt since they certainly have contributed, and many voted to continue the Bush tax cuts for two years, but as USA Today noted, it was the recent spending since Clinton’s budget surplus that got this country into deep trouble.
Sad, isn’t it? Although NH members vote with their party at least 95% of the time, I hope they will rise above politics and vote with Ronald Reagan rather than their current leadership. America is counting on them to do the right thing.
The debt limit debate has become a sign of all that is wrong in Congress these days. This Congress, the most partisan in recent history and, as the LA Times notes, “underperforming even the ‘do-nothing Congress’ of 1948,” simply cannot stay at work long enough or even work together to get the job done. As NH Senator Kelly Ayotte commented in that July 3 article, “I thought we would vote on a lot more bills.” Yes, so did we. At least, we thought they could vote on the looming debt ceiling vote before our country defaulted, but the deadline, August 2, is getting too close for comfort, and Congress had to be shamed into coming back to work this week to even argue about it. They have not passed a single jobs bill, which is a disaster for the millions of unemployed in this country, but if they let America default on its debts, the consequences would reverberate in the markets around the world.
As Ronald Reagan said in 1983, “the full consequences of a default, or even the serious prospect of default by the United States, are impossible and awesome to contemplate.” In 1987, Reagan called refusing to raise the debt ceiling “brinksmanship” that “threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.”
Fast-forward to today. In Atlanta Business Chronicle, US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue said: “…the country cannot afford to not pay its bills. To those newly-elected representatives who say they aren’t going to raise the debt ceiling and will shut down government, Donahue said the U.S. Chamber has its own message: We’ll get rid of you.” This is pretty serious stuff. When Republican icons from the past and the head of the US Chamber are warning Republican leaders of dire consequences if they don’t raise the debt ceiling and default, why isn’t Congress listening?
Sadly, the answer lies in politics. Political ideology trumps reality. Republicans are so against any kind of tax on the wealthy that they voted repeatedly to increase the ceiling through the Bush years rather than raise revenue to pay for their spending. As USA Today stated in their July 5 editorial, “…the nation has used trillions of dollars in borrowed money to finance two wars, Medicare’s prescription drug program, and President George W. Bush’s broad tax cuts—all initiated with the GOP controlling both the White House and Congress. Now Republicans have belatedly decided that borrowing is bad too, but they dogmatically resist even the most sensible and painless tax hikes.”
The Republicans are so opposed to either collecting any income tax from GE and other corporations, or stopping taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and other special interests, that they are refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to slash Social Security, Medicare, education, housing, transportation funding, infrastructure, research, healthcare, or anything else that actually benefits communities and the middle class. They tell people through mailers and tele-town halls that they have to reduce benefits to save Social Security, all the while knowing that Social Security is solvent enough to fully pay benefits until 2036, and is not contributing to the debt at all right now.
Republican members are also misleading the middle class and small businesses by asking them if they want to pay more taxes, and then reporting back the answer was no. Of course it is no. The middle is tired of paying for the breaks the tax structure gives to the top 1% and multinational corporations. NOBODY is talking about raising the taxes on the middle class, and Republicans know that. They are misleading the public and distracting them from the real issue. Their ideology and agenda will not allow them to raise revenue to help us dig out of this mountain of debt that their ideology got us in. Democrats do not get a free pass on the debt since they certainly have contributed, and many voted to continue the Bush tax cuts for two years, but as USA Today noted, it was the recent spending since Clinton’s budget surplus that got this country into deep trouble.
Sad, isn’t it? Although NH members vote with their party at least 95% of the time, I hope they will rise above politics and vote with Ronald Reagan rather than their current leadership. America is counting on them to do the right thing.
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