Washington—House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Jim McCrery (R-La.) issued the following statement on the Democrats’ plan to raise taxes and cut a successful Medicare program:
“In 1997, Republicans and Democrats worked together to fix a gap in our nation's healthcare system. The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was created to cover low-income children who were not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid. But Democrats' new SCHIP expansion plan will move far beyond that bipartisan goal. It will continue to increase taxpayer-funded coverage for adults and middle-class children, and move the United States toward a system of completely government-controlled healthcare.
“The Democrats plan to pay for a massive SCHIP expansion by increasing taxes and cutting Medicare is the wrong choice for America. Tobacco taxes fall hardest on the working poor - the very people that SCHIP was originally designed to help. Under the Democrats' proposal, a working family in which both parents smoke (not uncommon in a country where 1 in 5 adults smoke) would face over $1200 a year in federal tobacco taxes. And it is fundamentally bad tax policy to use a declining revenue source to pay for an expanding entitlement, especially since the tax increase will cause tobacco consumption and the resulting tax revenue to decrease even more sharply.
“Furthermore, the cuts that Democrats are proposing to Medicare Advantage would result in over 3 million beneficiaries losing their current Medicare plan, according to a leading researcher in the field. Those beneficiaries would be disproportionately minorities or from rural areas. Medicare Advantage plans often offer benefits not available under traditional fee-for-service Medicare, including lower co-payments and better preventative care. Cutting Medicare Advantage would take those benefits away from millions of Americans.
“There is a better way. Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton has designed a plan to reauthorize SCHIP that will keep it focused on providing healthcare coverage for low-income children. In addition, I have worked with a number of my colleagues to craft a proposal that would use the tax code to reduce the number of uninsured and help more Americans move out of government-controlled healthcare and into patient-centered, free-market health coverage. We need to keep SCHIP focused on helping low-income children and not allow Democrats' to use it as a stalking horse to move America towards a government-controlled, socialized healthcare system.”
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