NY-26 Lesson: Don’t Mess With Medicare — Or Social Security!
In 2010 Republicans and corporate front groups ran ad after ad after ad after ad claiming that Democrats had “Cut 500 billion from Medicare.” Those ads brought them the senior vote, and they took the House. Confident in their ability to “create their own reality” they came out with a plan to privatize Medicare and told the public it would save Medicare. Well, last night’s win by Kathy Hochul in the NY-26 special election — with pretty high turnout in a Republican district — shows that the American people are smarter than they look, and figured out what was what. The lesson: don’t mess with Medicare.
Soundly Defeated
Yesterday’s NY-26 Congressional election turned on Medicare and the candidate who supported Medicare won. The candidate who supported the Republican plan to privatize Medicare was soundly defeated.
House Republicans voted to change Medicare from a single-payer plan to a private-insurance voucher plan as a measure to “cut government spending.” Republicans had talked themselves into believing the public hates government as much as they do and therefore gutting it is what the public wants. Instead of working to control health care costs they just shifted those costs away from the government into “personal responsibility” land. In plain non-propagandized English personal responsibility means each of us on our own, alone, instead of all of us watching out for and taking care of each other.
The public figured it out and voted to keep the Medicare-gutter out.
American Majority
The American Majority understands what is going on. They know that our budget problems come from tax cuts, military spending and the lack of jobs. Those are the things the public wants the Congress to fix.
Where the deficits come from:
Gallup Poll, January 14-16, 2011
- 64% oppose spending cuts to Medicare.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, February 24-28, 2011
- 54% believe it will not be necessary to cut spending on Medicare to reduce the national deficit.
- 76% believe cutting Medicare to help reduce the budget deficit is mostly or totally unacceptable.
- 60% oppose turning the Medicare system into a government-issued voucher program, which would require the beneficiary to purchase private health insurance.
First Focus and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Poll, April 13-18, 2011
- 70% oppose cuts/changes to the Medicare system as described in the House Republican Budget.
- 49% support not reducing funds to Medicare.
- 53% believe replacing the current Medicare program with a voucher system in which retirees will receive vouchers to use to purchase subsidized insurance from private insurance companies for those 55 or older is totally or mostly unacceptable.
CBS News/The New York Times Poll, April 15-20, 2011
- 61% believe that Medicare is currently “worth the costs.”
- 76% think government has the responsibility to provide health care coverage to the elderly.
- 49% believe higher-income beneficiaries should pay more in taxes.
Bloomberg News Poll, March 4-7, 2011
- 54% oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would help participants pay for their own health insurance.
- 76% oppose reducing benefits for Medicare.
Pulse Opinion Research for The Hill Poll, April 28, 2011
- 53% said they would oppose a reduction in Medicare benefits in order to get the deficit/debt under control.
Pew Research Poll, March 8-14, 2011
- 65% oppose changes to Social Security as a way to reduce the budget deficit.
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