House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's
strong stance on Medicare seems to be spreading. Since it's now coming from the Senate, and from a key committee chair,
that's encouraging news.
The attempt by Republicans to tie Medicare reforms to negotiations on raising the debt ceiling is "absolutely irresponsible," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said Friday.
Reed and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, took their strongest stance yet on the issue during a conference call with reporters....
"Our message," Harkin said, "is simply: Take Medicare off the table. Let's solve the default crisis. And let's talk about fixing the system so that our middle class has a little bit better shape."
"Medicare is such a complicated, complex topic," Reed said. "To do it right, this is not the proper arena for that kind of debate."
Today, more Senate Dems are pushing the advantage the public backlash against the plan has earned calling on the Senate GOP to abandon their Medicare plan, and taking their case to Vice President Biden in the debt-ceiling negotiations.
Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) on Monday will call for Republicans to take Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) plan for Medicare off the table in ongoing bipartisan deficit-reduction talks....
The senators wrote a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading these discussions, urging the administration to remain strongly opposed to any GOP efforts to insert the Ryan plan into a massive deficit-reduction package.
Those signing the letter include: Brown and Cardin, as well as Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Jon Tester (D-MT).
The letter reads, in part:
We share the goal of ensuring the long-term health of Medicare. We hope to identify delivery system reforms and other sources of savings that can extend the life of Medicare in its current form. But we will never allow any effort to dismantle the program and force benefit cuts upon seniors under the guise of deficit reduction. Our nation’s seniors are not responsible for the fiscal challenges we face, and they should not be responsible for shouldering the burden of reducing our deficits.
Holding the line at benefits cuts is important, not just rejecting the Republican plan for Medicare as it's written. It's not enough to say "no" to "Vouchercare." They have to reject the idea that the nation's middle class has to be sacrificed to the deficit gods.