HEALTH CARE:
TALKING POINT: Health Care in this country is in a terrible state
1. The biggest problem facing most ordinary people today is the cost of health care. Elderly people and poor people can't afford to go to the hospital or buy the prescription drugs they need. Single mothers and poor families can't afford to take their kids to the doctor and many have to rely on emergency rooms for severe medical problems. If you are lucky enough to have insurance for your family, it stops covering your kids when they are in their late teens or early 20s and God forbid they should become seriously ill or have an accident before they get established with jobs that hopefully provide them with health insurance. This is a big if, since an ever-increasing number of employers has stopped offering it. We all know from personal experience what terrible problems we face when we don't have health insurance. People can lose all their money and the quality of care they get is not very good.
2. Insurance: Even if you have insurance, the insurance companies sometimes deny coverage in spite of doctor's recommendations. People are at the mercy of insurance company employees, who know nothing about medicine, whose main goal is to make sure their companies make money. They don't care about you.
3. Democrats have tried in the past to do something about health care but were stopped by the Republicans and the big Insurance Corporations.
Democrats feel that health care is a basic human right and not something that should be based on a person's ability to pay. Bill Clinton tried to pass a health care bill in the 1990s that would provide affordable health care to all Americans but the insurance companies successfully spent millions of dollars on ads to try to confuse people and sway them into opposing it. Their campaign worked. They had a reason. They benefit tremendously from the current system. Just imagine if we didn't have insurance companies. How much would we save by eliminating the middleman and all the paperwork involved? Think about how much we would save if we didn't have to pay for the companies' lobbying costs. Since late 1999, health care lobbying spending has been higher than that of any other industry. In 2002, for instance, they spent $264 million dollars to lobby politicians to make sure the laws benefit them not us.
4. Our Health care system ranks second from the bottom of all the industrial nations but we pay more for it.
. You would think, from what the politicians and advertisers tell us, that we pay so much in this country because our health care system is better. In fact, the United States pays much more than twice the average of all the other industrial nations on health care. This includes, the European countries, England, Canada, Australia and Japan. These other countries have universal health care and when their people get sick, they just go to the doctor. Their costs are free or minimal. They don't have to buy expensive health insurance to keep from worrying when they get sick that they will go bankrupt or have to do without essential medicines.
5. Universal Health Care should be a goal, Democrats feel but Republicans try to scare you about this idea:
Sometimes the Republicans call the universal system that these other countries have "Socialized Medicine" and claim that it's a terrible thing. They tell you that if we had that system we wouldn't get as good health care as we do. Don't let this fool you. They have a vested interest in scaring you because they are the party of the corporations and lobbyists give lots of money to them to try to make sure that our current system doesn't change. In fact, our health care system was ranked second from the bottom in comparison to twelve other countries in a study done a few years ago. In a comparison between the U.S. and Canada, for instance, 75 million of Americans are without any health insurance at all, whereas Canada provides health coverage for every single person.
6. What is the Bush Administration planning to do about this? Make Things worse yet again:
a. Make you set up savings accounts with your own money to pay for health care.
In the new Republican Party Platform, they say nothing about the insurance companies. They say they want to establish "Health Savings Accounts." All this means is that you get to put away your own money in a savings account to use for your medical expenses. They might let you save this prior to paying taxes on the money. But most of us don't have a lot of extra money kicking around that we aren't using to pay our bills and for basic necessities. Would this help you?
b. Limit your ability to sue for malpractice:
Another thing the Republicans want to do is to cap jury awards to people who are injured by doctors or hospitals. This means if your child is killed or terribly injured through medical negligence, you will be limited in how much money you can sue them for.
c. Make you pay more for Medicare:
Medicare costs just went up on Sept 8, 2004.. According to CBS News, "Medicare premiums for doctor visits will rise 17 percent next year, the largest increase in the program's 40-year history, the Bush administration said Friday.
Monthly payments for Part B of the government health care program -- doctor visits and most other non-hospital expenses -- will jump to $78.20 from $66.60. Premiums have been rising increasingly in recent years. This year they rose 13.5 percent and 8.7 percent the year before that. In contrast, when Medicare began in 1967, the premiums were $3.00/month." Even with inflation, that does not account for this tremendous rise in costs.
d. Give you confusing Medicare cards that mostly benefit the big drug companies.
If you are elderly and are on prescription drugs, the Bush administration passed a bill to give you temporary Medicare Prescription drug cards. These supposedly lower your costs for these drugs. But the choices are confusing and may save you no money at all. According to CNN, "outside analysts believe that seniors will be able to save just as much by shopping around on their own rather than locking themselves into a drug card."
If you choose a card, you might get the wrong one, if your drugs aren't covered or if your doctor changes your prescription to another drug. Yet they won't let you change to a different card for a whole year!
In the meantime, in this same bill, the Republicans now prevent you from being able to go to Canada or Mexico and get the much cheaper drugs they offer there. Those countries have laws that allow their governments to bargain with the drug companies for the cheapest price. In the U.S. bargaining with the drug companies to get better prices is now illegal, thanks to President Bush.
NOTE: As of this writing (September 9, 2004), according to The Wall Street Journal, p. A4: Bill Frist, the Senate Republican Leader, "brushed aside any suggestion of taking up popular legislation allowing the freer import of prescription drugs from Canada."
Facts:
1. Millions of people will pay more not less for their drugs under the new Medicare bill. This is because, before, many people who qualified for Medicaid and Medicare because they are really poor (six million low-income elderly and disabled people) didn't have to pay for their prescription drugs. Now they do. In fact they are barred from getting Medicaid drug benefits when this bill takes total effect in 2006. Although the new co-pay is only $1-3 per prescription, it is a hard financial burden for these very poor people.
2. The bill provides no guarantees that the drug you need will be on the list of covered drugs. The plan has a short list of preferred medicines and if your drug isn't on the list, it won't be covered.
3. There is a huge gap in coverage in this bill. The program, with a $35/mo premium and a $250/year deductible only covers 75% of drug costs up to $2,250. Then, if you still have more costs, the bill doesn't cover a thing until you reach $3,600. At that point, Medicare will pay 95% of any remaining costs. However, if you have to buy drugs not on the list, these won't count toward your $3,600 limit.
4. You won't be allowed to buy private insurance to cover the costs of such drugs, nor can you buy insurance to cover the gap in coverage. Why not? because the Republicans don't want you to become "insensitive to costs." In other words, they don't want you out extravagantly buying a lot of drugs you don't need. But would you buy an extra $1100 worth of drugs (over the amount of $2,250) a year for no reason? The people who will be hurt by this are not wealthy people.
5. Big companies like Pfizer are now canceling discount cards that they used to offer to the elderly that helped a lot more. The New York Times reported on Sept. 1st that a 30 day supply of Lipitor used to cost $15.00 with their discount card. Now it will cost $68.00 (compared to Canadian price of $43). Pfizer tells the elderly to use the new Medicare discount cards, which only about 4.1 million of the nation's 40 million Medicare beneficiaries have signed up for. When elderly people are sick, they are less likely to be able to navigate the complexities of a system like this. The president of the Medicare Rights Center, a non-profit advocacy group, said "the needier the person, the sicker the person, the more likely they will be shut out of these programs."
6. Oncologists (cancer doctors) said today in the news that Medicare cuts from the Bush Medicare bill will mean that more than half of the clinics and doctor's offices that provide cancer-fighting chemotherapy will be unable to cover the costs of some key drugs. Apparently, the proposed cuts are twice the size that the Bush Administration predicted. ( Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2004.)
7. Fact: Additional profits that the drug companies will realize
from the Bush Medicare bill $139 billion
What's the alternative? John Kerry wants to cut out a lot of the insurance paperwork and administrative costs to save money that can be used for your health care. He wants to cut your family insurance premiums by $1000 and to cover all Americans with the same health care plans available to members of Congress. He and the Democrats want to end discrimination against people with mental illnesses and treat them the same as people with other types of illness. He also wants to again allow you to get prescription drugs from Canada and overhaul the Medicare Drug plan to ensure low cost drugs just like they have in most other countries in the world.
SOCIAL SECURITY:
TALKING POINT If you want the Social Security System to ensure that you are
taken care of in your old age, you'd better vote for Democrats.
1. The Republican Party Platform for 2004 calls again for "establishing personal retirement accounts that will allow workers to direct a portion of their payroll taxes to personal investments."
Remember what just happened with the stock market bubble in 2000 where all the stocks crashed and they haven't come back up to their old levels since? Well, if you want to risk your Social Security money in the stock market, the Republicans have a deal for you. What their proposal basically means is that instead of being guaranteed a set amount of Social Security income when you retire, you will have to take charge of your own investments and hope that they do well. This is a big if, as there have been long periods of time (for instance, about 20 years from the late 1960s to the early 1980s) when the stock market did nothing but lose money or tread water. Of course, you can also invest in bonds (which lose value whenever interest rates go up), or commodities (cotton, gold, oil, copper, etc) or fine art or I guess whatever you want, if you know what you are doing and have a lot of luck. However, if your investments don't do well, you will be out of luck come retirement time.
Of course, the Republicans say this is all "voluntary" and only a portion of the Social Security fund will be set aside for these accounts. However, don't be fooled. This is just a "foot in the door" strategy on their part and they make NO bones about this. They've been wanting this for years. They make it sound like a really good thing for YOU. It will give you "freedom to make your OWN decisions," they will tell you. But think how good it will be for corporations to have the "freedom" of having all your hard-earned Social Security tax money invested in their companies? And, of course, these same corporations are the ones who are busily under-funding your pension plans at the same time!
You and I know that not everyone can make their own investment decisions wisely. People who work full time jobs every day and have a family and other concerns often don't have the time or energy or skills or knowledge to be able to take charge of their own investments. What if you have the bad luck to make a mistake? And what about the fact that the Stock Market is not a level playing field? Someone loses for everyone who wins? Think of Enron. Who is more likely to win --you or those in positions of power? Do you want to take the chance of spending your old age in poverty?
Facts:
* Dow Jones Industrial Average
Dec. 31, 1964: 874.12
Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00
These facts are taken from an article by Warren Buffett, the famous investor who owns Berkshire Hathaway Corp. He wrote it for Fortune Magazine. in 2002. Here he shows that in the 17 year period from 1964 to 1981, the Dow Jones Industrial average (the major industry index in the Stock market) gained only one-tenth of one percent in that whole time. This means that if you were invested in the supposedly most reliable stocks in the stock market for 17 years in that time period, you would come out with only a fraction more than you had put into it. Is this the kind of chance you want to take with your social security money?
Compare this to this period:
* Dow Industrials
Dec. 31, 1981: 875.00
Dec. 31, 1998: 9181.43
If you had invested money in THIS 17 year period, you would have made a ton of money. However, this included a period when there was a huge stock market bubble which also crashed leaving many investors out of luck. Would you have known when to sell before you lost your shirt? Lots of people didn't and lost thousands of dollars in their retirement accounts and were forced to work years longer to make up the losses. Luckily, they at least knew they were going to get Social Security. Will you be so lucky?
2. The Republicans also gloss over the fact that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 2, 2004, page 1 - having Social Security personal investment accounts will cost the government even MORE money. This money will come out of the payroll taxes that you pay into the current Social Security System. But this means that there will then be LESS money in the current system, which they are already telling us doesn't HAVE enough money in the first place to take care of all the baby boomers who are going to need their retirement income over the next 20 years.
Fact: Diverting just two percentage points of payroll taxes would create a gap of up to $2 trillion in the Social Security Fund over the first 10 years, acc. to the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 2, 2004. How would they make this gap up? Here are the Bush administrations own internal ideas from a document the Treasury Department prepared for Bush:
a. Borrow even more money (see National Debt above)
b. Curb the growth of benefits!
Fact: In response to the Bush administration's ideas about doing this a couple of years ago, his then Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill said that Mr. Bush needed to be asked,
a. "Is he willing to live with benefit cuts (ie., "pain)?
b. What is the meaning of "voluntary"?
c. Does he want to inflict pain on everyone or just those who voluntarily opt out of the system?"*
* This is from an internal Treasury Dept. memo dated October 25, 2001.
3. So, what is the real truth of their claims that there isn't enough money in the Social Security Trust Fund?
Facts:
a. Year through which Social Security and
Medicare are fully funded without any.
changes to the system? 2042
b. Percentage of Social Security and
Medicare benefits that will be funded
after that, even without changes to the
program? 73%
So why does everyone worry about the problems funding
Social Security? Well, because even though you and I have paid enough money into the system to make the above facts true --in other words, we have funded Social Security with our own money so that it SHOULD be currently solvent, the fact is that the Bush administration has gone through all that money, spending it on other things! It has spent all the money in the Treasury that was there when Clinton left (5.6 trillion dollars) and now is terribly in debt. The government doesn't actually HAVE a separate budget for Social Security. The money just comes out of the general fund for operating expenses.
You might recall that Al Gore wanted to put that money safely aside in a "Lock box," as he explained when he was running for President in 2000. But he got ridiculed for this idea, lost the election and now the Republicans are telling us the sky is falling and that "there's no money, no money" for Social Security.
4. Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, tells us that because there is now there is no money we will have to sacrifice to keep our social security. We will have to wait longer to receive benefits and our benefits may be cut.
a. Well, this certainly sounds like he is starting us in on the Bush Teasury Department Plan b above --ie., "we need to curb benefits." But, if he was worried about this, why did Mr. Greenspan give his blessing to the Bush administration when Bush cut taxes for the wealthy when he first took office? And what about those taxes on the wealthy? Suppose we took some of them back, as Kerry wants to do? Suppose we taxed the wealthy on more of their income over $87,900, which is the limit of their pay they have to pay into the Security System even though they receive full benefits? What about the 60% of corporations who pay no income tax at all in this country? Maybe we could tax some of them? There are ways we can make SS solvent without cutting benefits. Even some Republicans, such as South Carolina Republican, Linsay Graham, have suggested these things, but the Bush administration opposes raising taxes on anything. In fact, Bush wants to cut taxes even further in his next administration (see Republican Party Platform 2004 taxes).
b Fact:
Alan Greenspan in the 1980s was the Chair of a commission on Social Security. At that time he persuaded Congress to increase the payroll (Social Security) tax for the express purpose of making sure that the Social Security fund would be okay in the future. This succeeded. By increasing the tax, a SURPLUS was generated in the fund. This surplus was a big part of what was spent by Bush in giving tax cuts to the wealthy and which Greenspan supported. According to economist, Paul Krugman, "now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits."
Krugman continues, "If Mr. Bush wins in November, we can be sure that they (the Bush administration) will move forward on privatization (personal SS investment accounts)...These will be sold as a way to `save' Social Security (from a nonexistent crisis), but will in fact undermine it's finances. And that, of course is the point."