A couple of weeks ago, I like many of you surely have done as well contacted my Congressional elected officials to let them know of my thoughts and feelings regarding the safety net, specifically SS, Medicare/Medicaid. My last phone call was made to Cathy McMorris Rogers who is my Republican representative for Washington States 5th Congressional district. As many of you know she has been listed as the 4th ranking Republican in the House.
On Saturday came the letter reply, and I found some of her comments quite interesting to say the least. In addition to my thoughts on the safety net I relayed some thoughts I had about revenue. Speciificall,y I mentioned that I felt it was time to end the big oil subsidies, and I was also in favor of a small tax levied on each transaction that was made on Wall Street. President Clinton has mentioned this in his book "Back to Work" as having large potential for making a dent in our debt problem.
Like me, Cathy said she was concerned about Social Security and said it would become insolvent sometime around 2033. Her exact reply was "like you, I am concerned about the future of SS, although something needs to be done to (keyword)" reform" SS to ensure its future viability and any changes must protect the benefits of the millions of current retirees that have paid into that trust fund." No further explanation of her take on the meaning of the word "reform". My take is it means cut. But it sounds like she means it needs to be strengthened, was my view. Key words are "future viability", of course. Thats a bit different that was I hear Boner-Ryan say. Hmmmmm.
Then she replied on how she viewed Medicare. She said, "Medicare fulfills an important role in providing to our seniors. I opposed legislation like the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act, which cut $455 billion billion from Medicare ( thats different than the $800 million figure Ryan talks about), at a time when there are already significant strains on the system. Meaningful (keyword) "reforms" must be made to improve the viability of Medicare, but not in ways that will adversely impact physicians and retirees."
I found that reply VERY interesting. That as I understand is NOT the official position that most all the Repugs, and Ryan are talking about when they talk about Medicare reforms. As we know, he (they), are proposing changing Medicare over to a voucher system, to where seniors and others would have to find their own insurance and then would be susceptable to about $6,000 in spending costs that would come out of their own pockets assuming they are able to find some kind of insurance.
She had no comments on my thoughts about revenue, not that I expected any.
I almost want to send a copy of this letter to Boner and Ryan to get their take, but from what I read and understood McMorris Rogers isn't exactly on the same page as the other Repugs when it comes to these issues, and normally all Repugs stay in line on their talking points as we all know. No getting out of line is tolerated.
Believe me when I say I am going to hold her to these comments as we get further and deeper into the areas of cuts and "reforms". I know that.