[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5867]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     HOW GOP BUDGET IMPACTS SENIORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCHWARTZ. For decades, Medicare has been a lifeline for older 
Americans, providing quality and affordable health care for all 
seniors. But this week House Republicans are proposing to strip seniors 
of this guaranteed benefit. The Republican budget proposal dismantles 
Medicare as we know it, telling seniors they are going to be on their 
own to find insurance no matter what the cost or how sick they are. And 
it slashes Medicaid coverage for seniors who need long-term care, 
threatening our sickest, most frail elderly in nursing homes with no 
care at all. This is absolutely the wrong approach to solving our 
Nation's budget problems.
  Every day, 48 million elderly and disabled Americans across this 
country count on Medicare for their life-saving medications, doctor 
visits, and hospital care. Sixty-nine percent of people over the age of 
65, and they are both Democrats and Republicans, oppose Medicare 
becoming a voucher program. Seniors know that changing Medicare to a 
voucher program means that they will no longer have access to a 
guaranteed set of health benefits, that the value of a limited voucher 
won't keep up with rising health care costs, that the voucher would 
become insufficient over time, and the care they need could become 
unaffordable, that too many taxpayer dollars will be spent on 
advertising campaigns and administrative costs instead of actual 
medical expenses.
  And seniors know that privatizing Medicare means limits on benefits, 
obstacles to care, uncertain reimbursements, copayments for primary 
care or specialty care, exclusions for certain services, discrimination 
based on income, illness, or age, and more uncertainty if a serious 
illness or need for long-term care occurs. Seniors know that 
privatizing or voucherizing Medicare will mean that they pay more in 
premiums or do without. And it doesn't end there.
  In addition to Medicare cuts, Republicans also want to take away 
Medicaid for the nearly 6 million seniors who depend on it for nursing 
home or long-term care. They say proudly that they will cut funding to 
States by $1 trillion. This means that disabled and frail elderly 
Americans will be placed on waiting lists for services or have no 
access to care at all.

                              {time}  1040

  In Pennsylvania, my home State, nearly 40 percent of funds spent on 
long-term care would be at risk. This includes 62 percent of nursing 
home residents and 25,000 Pennsylvanian seniors who receive home health 
services.
  And yet when Republicans had the opportunity to reduce costs while 
maintaining and strengthening care for our seniors, they demonized the 
plan, voting time and again to stop important improvements in Medicare. 
And they still want to repeal the law that eliminates copayments for 
preventive care services, that makes prescription drug benefits more 
affordable and improves coordination of care and health outcomes, 
reduces errors and reduces costs for seniors.
  They want to repeal the law that curbs the growth in Medicare 
spending, saves taxpayers almost $500 billion by ending overpayments to 
insurance companies, and extends the life of the Medicare Trust Fund 
for 12 years. Instead, the Republicans here in Washington want to end 
Medicare as we know it and put health care for American seniors at 
great risk.
  As a senior member of the Budget Committee, I know how important it 
is to find solutions to reducing the deficit. To do this right, the 
solution must include spending cuts, tax policy reform, and economic 
growth.
  We should not fix our budget problems by failing to meet our 
obligations to our seniors. Every day we hear how determined 
Republicans are to slash billions of dollars from the central programs 
because we simply can't afford it. They say we can't afford to make 
investments in the future. We can't afford to educate our children or 
fix our roads or fuel innovation or cover health care costs for 
seniors.
  Yet in the same proposal to slash Medicare and Medicaid for millions 
of seniors, Republicans make permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 
percent of Americans. In the very same budget proposal where 
Republicans take away guaranteed benefits for seniors, they protect 
billions of tax subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
  In the very same budget proposal where Republicans give seniors a 
limited voucher to pay for higher insurance premiums, they protect the 
Pentagon from spending cuts on unnecessary weapon systems.
  One trillion dollars in tax expenditures, $700 billion in tax cuts 
for the wealthy few, $40 billion in tax breaks for oil companies, and 
billions of dollars to continue inefficiencies at the Pentagon--all of 
this spending is protected by the Republican budget. And instead, they 
choose to slash benefits to our seniors and our disabled Americans.
  Budgets are about priorities and they're about our values. Yes, we 
should get serious about our Nation's deficit, but let's be sure that 
our priorities are right and we do not threaten our obligations to our 
seniors, to our children, or to America's future.

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