Press Releases

Time for some Straight Talk

Seniors in Arizona are increasingly concerned when they hear about proposals to do away with Medicare as we know it and to institute “vouchers.” They should be concerned, and they should also know where these proposals are coming from.

Although Representatives like Congressman Paul Gosar claims his intention is to “preserve and protect Medicare for today and tomorrow,” this proves to be lip service when his proposals and votes go in completely the opposite direction.

Last month, Arizona Representative Gosar joined Representatives Schweikert, Quayle, Flake, and Franks in voting “yes” on the GOP budget bill that would end the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans for a safe and secure retirement.

Here are just a few of the things the GOP budget proposal does:

• Ends Medicare as we know it by privatizing the program (turning care over to insurance companies who have shown they care more about profits than care),
• Drastically increases out-of-pocket health care payments for current and future retirees,
• Eliminates many new Medicare benefits by repealing the Affordable Care Act
• Promotes rationing by private insurance companies,
• Guts Medicaid by slashing $1.4 trillion or 1/3 of the funding from the program thereby endangering long-term care services for seniors and the disabled,
• Initiates fast-track cuts to Social Security.

Unfortunately, the GOP budget proposal that Rep. Gosar supports does not contain one provision that promotes shared sacrifice from wealthy Americans, large corporations and oil companies. On the contrary, it gives these groups even bigger tax breaks and looks to the people struggling most to bear the burden of the federal deficit – all in the name of “shared sacrifice.”

Seniors are struggling. Oil companies are not. Yet Republicans like Gosar keep voting to hand billions in giveaways to oil companies, while ending Medicare for seniors.

Arizona has a large and growing senior population – are they going to stand up for the programs like Medicare that make our country great?

America is not going bankrupt because of a senior at a doctor’s office.  It has much more to do with the big tax breaks we give to millionaires and to many corporations that do not even pay any taxes.

In ending Medicare as we know it, the GOP plan turns it over to private insurance companies and gives future retirees coupons that would only cover part of their care and dramatically increase their out-of-pocket expenses.

A report that came out by The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) last week estimated that individuals born in 1957 would need $182,000 by the time they retire at 65 to pay the additional costs imposed by the Republican plan if they live to eighty-four. The Congressional Budget Office reported that new Medicare beneficiaries would end up paying 68% of the cost of their health insurance by 2030 versus the current 25% under Medicare.

Medicare was created in 1965 so seniors would not have to live in poor health and poverty.  The GOP budget plan, supported by Arizona’s Paul Gosar, abandons this long-standing American tradition. We really should not deny future retirees access to affordable health care, which they contribute to all their working lives.

Retirees and working Arizonans agree that it is vital for measures to be taken to contain the double-digit increases in health care, but the GOP budget does nothing to address costs.  Rather, it shifts those costs to seniors who, in many cases, will not get medical treatments because they are not affordable.

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Doug Hart is President of the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, a non-profit, non-partisan organization representing over 35,000 retirees statewide.    The Alliance for Retired Americans is committed to advocacy and education to ensure economic security for all retirees.