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Friday Alert 2/8/08
Friday, February 8, 2008
(Alliance for Retired Americans)Super Tuesday
Leaves Clinton, Obama, and McCain with the Most
Delegates
More than 14.6 million
Democrats and 9 million Republicans went to the
polls on Tuesday to pick their parties’
nominees for President. As of Thursday,
Sen. Hillary
Clinton (D-NY) held an 85-delegate lead
over Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), 1045-960,
according to RealClearPolitics.com.
Sen. Obama won 13 states to Sen. Clinton’s 9
on Tuesday, with both winning important
states. As of Thursday, The Washington
Post said that Sen. Clinton had won 782
delegates on Super Tuesday, while Sen. Obama
had won 757. According to The New York
Times, in an incredibly even split, Sen.
Clinton won 50.2% of the two-candidate vote on
Tuesday, and Sen. Obama won 49.8%. As of
Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had 707 of the
1,191 total delegates needed to clinch the GOP
nomination, to 195 for former Arkansas Gov.
Mike
Huckabee. Former Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt
Romney ended his campaign on Thursday
with 294 delegates.
Congress Passes
Stimulus Bill Giving Rebates to
Seniors
Senate Republicans and
Democrats agreed on Thursday to add rebates for
20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled
veterans to a House-passed economic aid
package, ending a partisan stalemate over the
plan. H.R. 5140, passed hours later in
the House with the additions, would rush tax
rebates of up to $600 for individuals and up to
$1,200 for couples to most taxpayers within two
to four months. Seniors and disabled
veterans with $3,000 in Social Security or
veterans benefits would be eligible for the
checks. Another package that included
seniors and veterans, as well as an extension
of unemployment insurance and additional funds
for the low-income home heating assistance
program LIHEAP, was blocked by a Republican
filibuster on Wednesday. It fell a single
vote short of the 60 needed for
consideration. The roll call vote for
that plan, available at http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00008
, had all 51 Democrats and Independents as well
as eight Republicans voting for it. The
final tally was 58 to 41, after Majority Leader
Harry Reid
(D-NV) changed his vote to no, a
parliamentary move allowing him to bring up the
measure in the future. Sen. McCain missed
the Wednesday night vote, even though he was in
Washington when it was held and could have cast
the deciding vote. According to the
Associated Press, asked about the vote, Sen.
McCain said, “We’ve just been too busy,
focused on other stuff.” The Alliance
sent a letter to every U.S. senator on Tuesday,
writing that funds for low-income Social
Security recipients would have a nearly
immediate effect on the economy, and
recommending increased energy assistance and
food stamps to aid retirees. “Many
seniors who do not have enough heat should know
they came within one vote of getting it,”
said George J.
Kourpias, President of the
Alliance.
President Bush Proposes Means-Testing
for Medicare Part D
As part of his
final budget proposal, released Monday, President
Bush revealed his plan to begin
means-testing for the Medicare Part D
prescription drug benefit. The change would be
very similar to the means-testing implemented
for Part B by the Medicare Modernization Act of
2003 (MMA), which determines beneficiaries’
premium levels based on their previous year’s
income. Health care advocates argue that making
these programs more expensive for wealthier
beneficiaries, who tend to be younger and in
better health, undercuts their social insurance
nature. They expect many higher-income
recipients to ultimately opt out. In
turn, costs will rise for the millions of
middle and lower-income seniors who rely on the
affordable coverage Medicare provides.
Additionally, if income thresholds for
increased premiums are not scheduled to rise
with inflation, means-testing could apply to
middle-income seniors over time. “This is
another attempt by this Administration to
privatize Medicare,” said Edward Coyle,
Executive Director of the Alliance.
“Means-testing Part D is the next step down a
slippery slope that undermines our social
insurance programs.”
Merck Settles
Extreme Fraud Claims
In one of the
biggest U.S. health care fraud settlements
ever, Merck & Co. will pay $671 million to
settle claims it overcharged the government for
four popular drugs and bribed doctors to
prescribe its products, federal prosecutors
said on Thursday. A nationwide
investigation, triggered in 2000 by a former
Merck salesman-turned-whistleblower and
broadened by a Louisiana doctor who also
exposed overcharging, resulted in two
settlements, the Houston Chronicle/Associated
Press reported. The alleged overcharges,
dating back to the mid-1990s, involved Medicaid
programs, as well as federal health-insurance
programs at agencies including the Department
of Defense and Veterans Administration.
The settlement is the third largest ever for
health care fraud, behind a $900 million case
involving hospital operator Tenet Healthcare
Corp. and a $730 million case involving
hospital chain HCA. Medications involved
in the cases included the cholesterol drugs
Zocor and Mevacor, the painkiller Vioxx, and
the heartburn drug Pepcid. “Drug
companies are supposed to give Medicaid the
same discounts they give other entities,”
said Ruben
Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the
Alliance. “Merck was illegally charging
taxpayers more.”
Register Now for the
National Alliance’s First Regional Conference
of 2008
The national Alliance will
hold its Western Regional Conference March
24-26 in Las Vegas, NV. Locations and dates for
later conferences are: Northeastern Regional
Conference, April 17-18 in Philadelphia, PA;
Midwestern Regional Conference, April 28-29 in
St. Louis, MO; and Southern Regional
Conference, June 4-5 in Orlando, FL. The
regional conferences are a forum to work with
other activists in the area to learn how to
increase grassroots advocacy, get seniors and
retirees registered and voting, and educate
federal, state and local legislators on the
issues that concern retirees and seniors,
including prescription drugs, Medicare, Social
Security and retirement security. Join us
to set the course for the Alliance and for a
country that cares about workers, retirees and
their families. For copies of the
official registration form for any of the four
regional conferences, call 1-888-373-6497,
email Joni Jones at jjones@retiredamericans.org,
or visit our website at www.retiredamericans.org.
Did You
Know…
According to the Associated
Press, by 2040, it is anticipated that about
40% of voters will be 65 or older.
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