According to a new Bloomberg News report today, Congressman Brian Bilbray’s (CA-52) Medicare-ending Ryan budget would increase health care costs for seniors while protecting health care for Members of Congress like himself. The Ryan-Bilbray budget is a “plan to revamp the health-care program for the elderly [that] wouldn’t have the safeguards against rising costs included in the coverage that lawmakers and other federal workers receive.”
“Congressman Brian Bilbray will do anything to protect himself and his perks like taxpayer-funded health care, even while ending Medicare for California seniors,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Congressman Bilbray would sell out seniors by ending Medicare and raising their health care costs but at the same time protect his own taxpayer-funded health care. For months voters have learned about Congressman Bilbray’s agenda to protect millionaires instead of protecting Medicare, but now it’s clear he’s really just trying to protect himself too.”
Congressman Bilbray is more committed to the Ryan budget than ever before now that the Republican plan to end Medicare is going to be his party platform. A Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday shows that informed adults oppose the Ryan-Bilbray budget by a 15-point margin (49 percent to 34 percent that expands to a 31-point margin (55 percent to 24 percent) among seniors age 65-and-older.
Background
Bloomberg: Ryan Budget Doesn’t Safeguard Seniors From Rising Health Care Costs But Would Protect Members of Congress.
“Republican vice presidential candidate Ryan’s plan to revamp the health-care program for the elderly wouldn’t have the safeguards against rising costs included in the coverage that lawmakers and other federal workers receive. [Bloomberg, 8/23/12]
House Republicans Voted for Ryan Budget That Ends Medicare.
House Republicans voted for two budgets authored by Congressman Paul Ryan. Together, these budgets that would end Medicare’s guaranteed benefit, protect $40 billion in tax breaks for big oil, and provide people earning more than $1 million a year with an average tax cut of $265,000. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office estimated it will increase health care costs by an extra $6,359 by 2022 for future Medicare beneficiaries, while the Center for American progress has claimed that it is likely that that a middle-class family with two kids making about $70,000 a year would pay about $1,150 more in income tax. [H Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11; H Con Res 112, Vote #151, 3/29/12; Center for American Progress, 3/20/12; Center for American Progress, 3/20/12; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/27/12; Tax Policy Center, Table T12-0078 and T10-0132; Citizens for Tax Justice, 3/22/12; CBO, 4/5/11; CNN, 3/23/12]
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