Tag Archives: Medicare

Paul Ryan plots his final battle in the GOP’s war on the poor

Posted on June 20, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie | 1 comment

The GOP’s alleged boy genius and Ayn Rand fanboy, Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin” who is leaving Congress at the end of his term — Dude, pack the moving van, I’ll come drive your shit back to Janesville for you this weekend! — is plotting his final battle in the GOP’s war on the poor. This evil GOP bastard can’t leave soon enough.

Politico reports, House GOP budget sets up massive safety net cuts, Obamacare repeal bid:

House Republican budget writers debuted an ambitious deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that would force GOP committees to cut at least $302 billion over a decade and potentially lay the groundwork for another repeal vote on Obamacare.

The GOP’s sweeping budget plan is the first step toward a filibuster-proof bill [under budget reconciliation rules] that could result in real reductions to popular programs like federal student aid or low-income family block grants.

It could also deliver on conservatives’ decades-old promise to rein in entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

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Posted in AZBlueMeanie, Budgets, Campaigns, Congress, Corruption, Economics, Elections, Ethics, GOP War On..., Healthcare, Legislation, Party Politics, Poverty, President, Scandals, Taxes

Tagged food stamps, health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Obamacare, pre-existing conditions, Social Security, SSI, student aid, tanf

What if R.F……Hubert Humphrey had won in 1968?

Posted on June 9, 2018 by David Gordon | Comments Off

Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey

Over the last week, there have been numerous salutations of the late Attorney General and New York Senator Robert Francis Kennedy who was assassinated after having won the California Primary in May 1968.

The tragic assassination, coupled with the horrific murder of his brother in Dallas five years earlier has left no shortage of historians and public policy wonks wondering “What if RFK had lived? Would he have won the nomination? Would he have been able to beat Nixon? What kind of President would he have been?”

These are all interesting and valid questions but it presupposes that the Democrats had no Progressive Champion carrying the banner for them in 1968 and that cannot be further from the truth.

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Posted in Activism, Campaigns, Civil Rights, Commentary, Community, Congress, Convention, David Gordon, Economics, Editorial, Education, Elections, Energy, environment, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Justice, Labor, Legislation, Military, Party Politics, Poverty, President, Uncategorized

Tagged civil rights, Hubert Humphrey, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Medicare, Peace Corp, Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy

Trump’s ‘trickle down’ tax cuts weaken the Medicare Trust Fund

Posted on June 6, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie | 1 comment

President Donald Trump’s “trickle down” tax cuts for corporations and wealthy plutocrats is not meeting the GOP’s fiscal projections, and is now weakening the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. This is what happens to Medicare when you cut taxes but not spending:

On Tuesday, we learned what happens when Republicans trying to rein in government tackle the tax side of the equation but not the spending side.

The result: a Medicare program that is projected to run out of money just eight years from now, in 2026.

The latest annual report on the financial situation of Medicare’s hospital program (and Social Security), released yesterday by the programs’ trustees, led Democrats to slam the tax overhaul Republicans pushed through Congress mainly on their own last year.

That tax measure’s income tax cuts — combined with reduced payroll tax collections because of lowered wages last year — are the two main reasons for the worsening financial outlook for the part of Medicare that reimburses hospitals for caring for seniors and the disabled, per the report.

And there’s something else, too. The tax bill also ends the Affordable Care Act’s penalty for lacking health insurance (aka individual mandate). So hospitals will see more uninsured patients as some Americans presumably drop their coverage, in turn requiring the Medicare program to pay more for such uncompensated care, a senior government official told my colleague Amy Goldstein and other reporters yesterday.

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Posted in AZBlueMeanie, Congress, Economics, GOP War On..., Healthcare, Legislation, Party Politics, President, Taxes

Tagged Medicare, Obamacare, Social Security, trickle down economics

New Poll Shows Matt Heinz in the Lead Over Ann Kirkpatrick in Tucson’s CD2 Congressional Race

Posted on May 15, 2018 by Larry Bodine | 3 comments

Dr. Matt Heinz

A survey of likely Democratic primary voters in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District shows Dr. Matt Heinz holding a 4-point lead over former Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick in the race for the Democratic Party nomination.

This is within the survey’s margin of error of +/-4.9%.

The poll was commissioned by Heinz. The Heinz campaign released a three-page summary offering highlights of the telephone survey but did not release the entire poll. The live phone survey was conducted by FM3 Research and dated May 9, 2018. It found that:

“While Democratic primary voters are familiar with both candidates, they are more likely to hold a favorable opinion of Heinz, and after hearing equal positive information about these two candidates, support for Heinz increases.”
“Furthermore, the survey shows that many aspects of Kirkpatrick’s voting record in Congress pose a serious problem for her among Democratic primary voters, particularly her support of Republican tax cuts, cuts to Medicare, and her former “A” rating from the NRA.”

In an initial Democratic primary ballot test, Matt Heinz currently leads the field with 27%, giving him a four-point edge over Ann Kirkpatrick (23%). These results show the highly competitive nature of the Democratic primary, and despite her high-profile and well-financed statewide candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2016, 2nd District Democrats have not embraced Kirkpatrick. The contest is very much a two-person race, as the other candidates generate only mid-single-digit support.
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Posted in Arizona Congressional Races, Campaigns, Congress, Economics, Gun Policies, Immigration, Larry Bodine, Party Politics, Primaries

Tagged Ann Kirkpatrick, CD2, Dreamers, Matt Heinz, Medicare, NRA

House Speaker Paul Ryan, the ‘zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin,’ announces his retirement

Posted on April 11, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie | 2 comments

I must admit that I am conflicted about today’s news.

Part of me wants to do my happy dance over the GOP’s alleged boy genius and Ayn Rand fanboy, House Speaker Paul Ryan, announcing that he will not seek reelection. This guy has been the media’s biggest darling and intellectual fraud of the past two decades.

But by quitting he deprives me of the sweet joy of seeing him defeated and humiliated, as he was in 2012 as the vice presidential nominee of Willard “Mittens” Romney. Vice President Joe Biden destroyed him in the VP debate. I want the catharsis of seeing Ryan defeated and humiliated because this insufferable asshole so richly deserves it. Good riddance.

On an eventful day such as this, it is time to check in with one of Paul Ryan’s harshest critics with which to celebrate, Charles Pierce at Esquire. Paul Ryan Will Retire as the Biggest Fake in American Politics:

It’s probably too much to hope that Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, will dedicate his retirement to public service the way that his immediate predecessor has.

Acreage Holdings (“Acreage”) (www.acreageholdings.com), one of the nation’s largest, multi-state actively-managed cannabis corporations, announced the appointments of former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John Boehner and former Governor of the State of Massachusetts Bill Weld to its Board of Advisors.

Instead, he’s going back to Janesville to be the Dad he’s always wanted to be, home to his 5,786-foot Georgian mansion on Courthouse Hill, and its 13 rooms, six bedrooms and seven bathrooms, the little house on the Wisconsin prairie that Ryan was able to afford because he married money, the one that’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Paul Ryan has somehow amassed a fortune of between four and seven million dollars without holding any job except “Congressman” for the past 20 years.

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Posted in AZBlueMeanie, Budgets, Congress, Corruption, Economics, Elections, GOP War On..., Healthcare, Party Politics, Poverty, Taxes

Tagged Fraud, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security

Medicare is Not an “Entitlement.” It’s an “Earned Benefit.”

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Larry Bodine | 5 comments

The GOP likes to portray Social Security and Medicare as undeserved handouts.

As I read about the current GOP attacks on Social Security and Medicare, they are referred to as “entitlements.” This clever word choice by Republicans suggests that the programs are welfare — a free handout to undeserving, lazy people.

What you call something makes a big difference. It’s a way to frame the discussion so that it leads to a pre-determined outcome.

Social Security and Medicare are “earned benefits.” I have paid into both programs every day of my working life. Anybody who has made it to age 65 has paid taxes to support both programs. I have worked for 50 years and resent the notion that these programs are freebies or giveaways.

Attack on Social Security

Social Security was enacted in 1935, when the lifetime savings of millions of people had been wiped out. It supports 59 million Americans over age 66. Social security is not going broke — it is projected to deliver full guaranteed benefits until at least 2037.

Well into the 1950s, Republicans tried to repeal Social Security. They continue to attack this earned benefit in Trump’s 2018 budget proposal by cutting Social Security by $72 billion. This includes explicit cuts to Supplemental Security Income programs and Social Security Disability Insurance programs, both managed by the Social Security Administration.
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