Yesterday, Susan wrote about the tough reception Republicans who voted to gut Medicare and Medicaid are getting at town hall meetings in their districts. The representatives mentioned in Susan’s posts aren’t alone in hearing from angry constituents.
Charlie Bass, my former and Susan’s current representative in New Hampshire:
WOMAN: Despite all we’re hearing about Ryan and Medicare, there’s a 10 percent reduction in the taxes for the wealthiest Americans. My feeling is this whole thing about saying 55 and under or under 55 is a way to divide and conquer because their benefits will be cut and then we as older people will, there will be anger fomenting against us. A generational gap will start where the younger people are told you’re playing for these Cadillac plans these older people how is that fair. Because we’re older the thought is we won’t speak up and won’t tell congress this is not acceptable. All generations have to stand together and say we need this social safety net. The bigger part of the problem is the commercial insurance industry.
BASS: Well first of all the tax part of the budget is revenue neutral. [...] The tax reduction is not a reduction in taxes on the wealthiest Americans, it’s a reduction of corporate tax rate so that we’re competitive around the world [...]
WOMAN: No, this is –
BASS: Very few companies, we tax foreign income, companies keep foreign income offshore. [...] The quickest way to turn this deficit down is to turn this economy around [...] off this federal system, so that the deficit goes down. We’re in this situation now here we’re bumping along unless we do something to stimulate real growth in this economy […] Who’s going to pay the bills? It’s going to be the younger people, that’s the real generational war, they’re going to say we’re not gonna pay 50, 60 percent of our income to subsidize the rest of the population older [...]
WOMAN: I agree, you guys are setting it up! [laughter from audience]
During a town hall in Orlando earlier today, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) faced a barrage of questions from outraged constituents about the Republican budget. The Orlando Sentinel accurately described the scene as “bedlam.”
For nearly an hour, Webster was peppered with one question after another about his support for ending Medicare, his desire to see tax breaks for the wealthy extended, and his vote to repeal health care reform, including its protections for people with preexisting conditions. For his part, Webster didn’t just avoid the questions by resorting to talking points, as most politicians commonly do. On numerous occasions, Webster simply declined to give an answer to contentious questions altogether, moving on to take a new question instead.
“I would like to know: Did you vote to eliminate Medicare as it is today?” a man asks Berg during his library appearance in an exchange caught on video by PlainsDaily.com
“No,” Berg says, before the audience contradicts him.
“You voted for every Republican issue and that was part of the issues that went out there,” the man says.
A woman interrupts to ask how much the elderly will be asked to pay out of pocket for health care costs under the new system.
“I want you to tell me how much it’s going to cost us when we’re 65 years old after you give us a voucher,” she says.
“Fifty-five or over, absolutely no change, absolutely no change, in this Medicare program,” Berg promises.
“As long as you are over 55,” the woman responds. “If you’re 54, to hell with those people.”
West’s town hall in Fort Lauderdale was interrupted by hecklers, one of whom shouted at the beginning of his remarks “How about our Medicare that you’re stealing?” The Palm Beach Post reports that that West took written questions submitted before the meeting, prompting another man to yell out that questions should be allowed from the audience.
You may recall that when tea partiers (often bused in from outside) showed up at town hall meetings to argue (often in monstrously inaccurate terms) against health care reform, it made national news for weeks. But here, though constituents are asking questions that are based in fact, it’s still a relatively low-profile story on a national level. These representatives should be sweating the fact that it is getting coverage in their districts, though.
It seems that Congresscritters are facing a lot of tough questions, and some outright hostility at town meetings in their home states. From The Nation:
Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, continues to be confronted with tough questions on his listening-session tour of southeastern Wisconsin communities. He’s been forced to move several of the events to bigger venues to accommodate the crowds—after things got tight and tense in places such at Milton, Wisconsin, where the crowd in a small venue was challenging him at every turn.
and
One of Ryan’s Republican colleagues, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, shut down a town hall meeting in a suburban Milwaukee community when he was challenged on economic issues in March.
This sounds a lot like the Tea Party invasion of town halls in 2009, only these folks have serious questions. The Tea Partiers intent was to disrupt, and get a lot of media attention. These folks are voters who have been suffering in this economy, and know very well when they’re being trickled down on.
The core issues that are bringing people out to the GOP town meetings are opposition to Medicare and Medicaid cuts (a real hot-button issue) and support for tax hikes for the rich. This fits with those national polls shows that show Americans are very opposed to developing voucher programs to replace traditional Medicare and Medicaid and would prefer tax hikes for the wealthy.
There is no solid, factual rationale for the proposed destruction of Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security for that matter. No wonder these guys are having such a hard time. How do you explain that you want to destroy essential social programs because of your political ideology without actually saying that’s the reason?
One guy has an idea for how to deal with this:
Newly elected Illinois Senator Mark Kirk has an idea. Instead of hearing what the people have to say, the Republican senator is suggesting that members of Congress should hunker down in DC.
Brilliant! If you don’t go home, you won’t have to answer any pesky questions.
Republicans have a new target, and its name is Medicaid. A few weeks ago, at the sidelines of the budget debate, Republicans quietly began to float proposals to roll back this health care program for the nation’s most vulnerable. In Washington this week, those under-the-radar whispers grew to a roar as GOP governors called on Congress to let them have their own way with the program.
As it stands now, states receive a percentage of their Medicaid money from the feds—based on the size of their beneficiary pool, among other factors. In exchange, they must follow guidelines governing minimum benefits they must offer and who must be eligible. Under health care reform, more than 12 million Americans will join the Medicaid rolls, and states will no longer be able to skimp on benefits.
The governors claim that their goal is to make these programs “efficient.” Some are more honest than others:
Barbour insisted that GOP-led reform wouldn’t necessarily mean kicking people off the rolls. But he blasted federal changes that would force states like Mississippi to enrich bare-bones benefit packages and bring more people on board. “We don’t want extremely high mandatory standard benefits packages,” he testified. “Some politicians act like they love our constituents more than we do.”
Given that Mississippi ranks dead last in terms of healthy residents, it seems likely that he’s right – some other politicians DO love their constituents more than he does.
The real issue here is that beginning in 2014, as a result of the health insurance reform bill, millions more people will be eligible for Medicaid.
Kaiser Health News provides a rational look at what turning Medicaid into block grants might mean:
Governors have long lobbied for a freer hand on Medicaid, which they say would result in a cheaper, more effective program. Lately, Republican governors have more aggressively pursued the block-grant idea, partly because they’re worried about the cost of adding millions more people to the program beginning in 2014. (The federal government will pick up the whole tab for new enrollees for the first three years, tapering down to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.) Governors also are alarmed at Medicaid’s growth rate, which the CBO estimates at 7 percent annually over the next decade. The program, some state officials say, is crowding out other needs, such as education.
The Republican governors also have other reasons to complain about Medicaid’s costs. They’re pushing hard to get leeway from the Obama administration on a rule barring them from tightening Medicaid eligibility before 2014. Some governors want to cut people from the rolls right away.
None of these governors seem too concerned with the health of their residents, which is interesting – but most of all I notice that there is no discussion of WHY Medicaid enrollment is on the rise. No one is pointing out that the most effective way to decrease that rise in Medicaid is employment.
The topic of unemployment and job creation has disappeared from our national dialogue.
Texas is considering withdrawing completely from the Medicaid program. From the NY Times:
“With Obamacare mandates coming down, we have a situation where we cannot reduce benefits or change eligibility” to cut costs, said State Representative Warren Chisum, Republican of Pampa, the veteran conservative lawmaker who recently entered the race for speaker of the House. “This system is bankrupting our state,” he said. “We need to get out of it. And with the budget shortfall we’re anticipating, we may have to act this year.”
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, estimates Texas could save $60 billion from 2013 to 2019 by opting out of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, dropping coverage for acute care but continuing to finance long-term care services. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which has 3.6 million children, people with disabilities and impoverished Texans enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, will release its own study on the effect of ending the state’s participation in the federal match program at some point between now and January.
Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured adults and children in the nation. Medicaid provides coverage for 2.3 million Texas children, though over 70 percent of the eligible children in the state are not enrolled. For every dollar Texas spends to fund Medicaid, they get $1.55 back in federal matching funds.
As always, budgets are balanced on the backs of those least able to afford it. It’s difficult to imagine how having 2.3 MORE uninsured children could be a badge of conservative pride.
Texas also has*:
The third highest teen birth rate
The third highest poverty rate
The lowest number of high school graduates
The lowest voter turnout
Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.
More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.
The increase in the food stamp program is even more dramatic:
More than 40 million people get food stamps, an increase of nearly 50% during the economic downturn, according to government data through May. The program has grown steadily for three years.
and
More than 4.4 million people are on welfare, an 18% increase during the recession. The program has grown slower than others, causing Brookings Institution expert Ron Haskins to question its effectiveness in the recession.
As unemployment benefits run out, more people are turning to what we used to call “welfare,” which is now TANF, Temporary Aid to Needy Families. In Philadelphia:
Between February and June, the number of people receiving welfare through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program has climbed 2 percent in New Jersey to 98,856 and 3 percent in Pennsylvania to 217,884.
Camden County has hovered near the top of New Jersey’s welfare rolls for years, fueled primarily by the city of Camden and its decades-long struggle to bring jobs back to the once-bustling manufacturing center. Since the beginning of this year, those numbers have only grown.
TANF is a temporary program, intended to aid people and get them back to work. Obviously, the getting people back to work part is especially challenging right now.
Nidia Sinclair, a middle-aged social worker from Panama who strolls through the office in bright embroidered dresses, says the task of getting people off welfare and into the workplace has never been harder, and her clients know it.
“It’s a work-first program, but the problem is, with the economy the way it is, there’s no work,” she said. “The frustration level is very high right now.”
(if you read the whole online article, you may find the comment section disturbing.)
In Williamsburg, for example, the number of families on food stamps rose by 28% in the past year. Food stamps in James City soared even higher, by 60% to 1,638.
Many are suffering from losing their jobs. Temporary welfare cases rose by 31% in the city and 22% in James City. Medicaid cases rose by about 9% in each locality.
Adult protective services cases and child protective services cases in the city rose as well, although the numbers are smaller.
As many as 10% of the city population of 13,000 are suffering.
Safety net program budgets have been on the chopping block for years. The need for services is already surpassing the funds available to help people. How much worse do things have to get before our elected officials wake up to the ongoing crisis?
After the extension of Medicaid funding to the states reached cloture in the Senate this morning (with the votes of Senators Snowe and Collins), the Senate bill should be passed by the end of the day tomorrow. Which leaves the House, which was scheduled to be out of session until September.
And then Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on Twitter to say this:
I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children #FMAP
Within hours, the Senate will vote on a crucial bill to extend Medicaid assistance to the states. Like so many bills these days, its passage will probably hinge on the decision of Maine Senators Snowe and Collins.
Adequate, stable and consistent Medicare and Medicaid funding was and always will be directly linked with high quality care and staffing and employment stability.
Elderly Mainers residing or recuperating in skilled nursing facilities across our state need and deserve immediate help, and Gov. John Baldacci desperately requires extended federal financial assistance to help bridge the funding gap as our state economy recovers.
Extending FMAP assistance an additional six months is a fundamental, central step towards protecting the foundation of quality care every Maine resident deserves, and preserving the jobs of the front line care staff that help improve Maine’s seniors’ quality of life.
We urge our congressional delegation in the strongest possible terms to fight for continued funding for FMAP.
The FMAP emergency fund package to be voted on today is paid for with offsetting budget cuts elsewhere, thus addressing one of the concerns raised by Sen. Snowe and others earlier this summer. We encourage our two senators to approve the measure and thereby save jobs, and also protect critical health services, for hundreds of Maine families.
Snowe and Collins have already weakened so many bills that would have funded jobs and desperately needed services in their state. Indeed, they’ve weakened this one. But it remains vital to their state’s budget and economy—vital to their state’s working families. What will their answer be?
States are begging for federal aid. And this week, the Senate is voting on an aid package that would give states Medicaid dollars, as well as money to keep teachers on the payroll. There is a catch. The money for this aid will be taken from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – formerly known as food stamps.
But to gain the votes of the Republicans necessary for passage, the bill includes “pay fors” to make it deficit-neutral. There is language to close a foreign tax credit loophole, raising $9 billion. Billions more come from tinkering with Medicaid drug prices and rescinding unspent funds from a variety of programs. But controversially, the bill will also likely slash $6.7 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the benefits formerly known as food stamps. This might result in a cut in benefit checks from one month to the next — an unprecedented event in the history of the benefit.
American food stamps are not generous, averaging only $4.50 a day even after being bumped up in the recession-era stimulus — less than you’d need to buy two meals at McDonald’s. And since the start of the recession, the number of families depending on them has skyrocketed. The economic crisis has pushed 12.9 million people into SNAP; as of April, more than 40 million collect the bare-bones benefits. More than 6 million Americans report no income whatsoever except for SNAP — because they are not eligible for unemployment insurance, Social Security, disability or other programs.
and:
Still, the suggestion caused outrage on the Hill. The House Appropriations Committee originated the education-jobs provision in a war supplemental bill, and in an interview with the Fiscal Times, its chair, Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), first revealed that the White House had suggested cutting SNAP early in the summer.
“We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here,” he said.
It ain’t easy to find offsets? He’s joking, right?
But this is also a question of priorities, of what gets cut. Bernie Sanders put up an amendment last month to cut about $35 billion in oil and gas subsidies. It failed. Republicans are arguing to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the rich with no offsets, and they may well succeed. But food assistance for poor families? You can get the votes to slash those.
How can this be? Sadly, it all comes down to money and influence:
The oil and gas industry, of which BP is a member, reported $169 million in 2009 lobbying expenditures.
