2012 Budget
The 2012 House Republican Budget which passed the House on April 15, 2011 is extreme and far-reaching in its scope. I voted against this harmful budget because it:
· Ends Medicare guarantee for seniors
· Gives away tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks to Big Oil
· Slashes health support for seniors in nursing homes
· Gives tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas
· Cuts education for children and raises college costs for nearly 10 million students
· Makes tax cuts for the wealthiest permanent, adding $1 trillion to the deficit.
The Republican Budget would dismantle the Medicare program and wreak havoc on the health and retirement security of America’s seniors and future retirees. The Republican budget destroys Medicare for everyone under age 55, ending Medicare’s historic entitlement to benefits and converting the program into a defined contribution that would offer individuals an under-funded voucher to purchase coverage in a new undefined marketplace where there is no guarantee that insurance companies will even participate.
The end result is a dramatic increase in the financial burden of health costs, with future retirees paying up to nearly three times as much for their health care than they would if current law continued.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), key points about the Republican budget:
• The Republican proposal would more than double beneficiary costs in 2022, from $5,538 to $12,513.
• That is an increase of nearly $7,000 per year in beneficiary premiums and co-insurance.
• Not one dollar of that increase in beneficiary costs goes to reducing the deficit – it all goes to cover the higher costs of private plans that the Republicans would force seniors to join.
• All of that cost increase in 2022 is a result of CBO's assessment that private plans cost much more than traditional Medicare.
• Beneficiary costs would nearly triple by 2030 and would continue rising thereafter. These increases are caused by both the higher costs of private health plans and direct shifting of costs to the beneficiary.
• Millions of seniors would immediately begin paying higher costs for prescription drugs because the Republican budget would re-open the Part D drug donut hole.
I agree with members of both parties who believe we need to reduce the debt and the deficit. The focus, however, must be on the timing and degree of the cuts. I agree with President Obama when he says they must be done with a scalpel, not a machete, and as he put it in his deficit reduction speech "shared prosperity means shared responsibility."