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Friday Alert
Friday, October 10, 2008(Alliance for Retired Americans)
McCain Health Plan Would Cut
Medicare by 22%
The Wall Street
Journal reported on Monday that
Senator John McCain’s health
plan would be financed through $1.3 trillion in
cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over 10
years. According to the Tax Policy
Center, this would be a 22% cut in both
programs. These cuts would be needed to
keep his health care tax credits
budget-neutral, in Washington parlance.
The Center for American Progress said cuts of
this magnitude would eliminate the Medicare
prescription drug benefit for 10.2 million
low-income seniors. “These reports pull
back the curtain on the McCain health care
plan, showing us that it would be paid for on
the back of millions of retirees. This is
terrible news for our nation’s seniors, who in
this time of economic anxiety, are already
struggling to make ends meet,” said Alliance
Executive Director Edward F.
Coyle.
$2 Trillion Lost in Retirement
Accounts, CBO Says
Retirement
plans in the U.S. have lost $2 trillion in the
past 15 months, the head of the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) reported on Tuesday.
The loss, approximately 20% of total value, is
indicative of the severity of the current
crisis in the financial industry. CBO
director Peter Orszag said
that 10% of this loss was between mid-2007 and
mid-2008, with another 10% occurring just in
the past three months. “We have a major
retirement crisis in America,” said Alliance
Secretary-Treasurer Ruben
Burks, adding, “Social Security is
more important than ever. It is a mystery to me
why, in the face of all this, President
Bush and Senator McCain want to gamble
away a privatized Social Security on the
roulette wheel of the stock market.”
Alliance’s Retiree Roadrunner Vans
Educate Retirees in Eight States in Eight
Days
Wrapped in red, white and blue
roadrunner graphics, the Alliance’s Retiree
Roadrunner vans are distributing more and more
educational information on such senior issues
as Social Security and economic security, as
well as voter protection. The vans will
have visited eight states during the last eight
days by the end of the day tomorrow. One
van joined up with a Labor ’08 walk in Joliet,
Illinois last Saturday, then traveled to
Indiana for an early voting event in
Bloomington and anti-privatization events in
Terre Haute, Evansville, Muncie, Ft. Wayne,
Kokomo, and South Bend on Monday through
Thursday. Today, that van is in Wisconsin
for an event at a senior center in Milwaukee,
as well as a second event with sheet metal
workers/retirees in Madison. The trip
concludes tomorrow in Davenport, Iowa with a
protest outside a McCain event.
A separate van headed to Connecticut on Monday, then stopped in New Hampshire and Maine, focusing on energy costs during the winter. That van’s trip ends with a candidate endorsement in Plains, Pennsylvania tomorrow. “I would like to express a heartfelt thank you to our state Presidents: Elmer Blankenship in Indiana; Leon Burzynski in Wisconsin; John Carr in Maine; Jean Friday in Pennsylvania; Bob Kortkamp in Missouri; Kevin Lynch in Connecticut; Hal Gullett in Illinois; John Mendolusky in New Hampshire; and Don Rowan in Iowa, who have worked tirelessly to educate seniors with the Roadrunner in advance of the election,” said George J. Kourpias, President of the Alliance. “And a special thanks to Carl “Hands” Paullet, the Teamsters, and Dave Meinell of the Machinists, for taking care of the driving and doing so much more, and to the staff in the Roadrunner states.” The Retiree Roadrunner vans will be in Ohio and Pennsylvania at the end of the month. Take a virtual van ride at www.retireeroadrunners.org .
Older Voters a Key Bloc in Swing
States
Due to their higher turnout
compared to voters 24 and under, voters 65 and
older could form a more decisive voting bloc
than younger voters in many swing states in
2008, according to the Associated Press.
"Being very popular but among a low turnout
group like the young under 30 isn't as valuable
to you in terms of votes cast as it might be to
have a smaller advantage but to have it among
the high turnout older groups," said
Charles Franklin, a political
science professor at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison. Recent polls show
Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain in
a statistical tie with voters 65 and
over. Obama has acted on older voters’
fears about an uncertain economic future,
running ads in senior-rich states like
Michigan, Florida, and Pennsylvania that remind
voters of McCain’s plans to privatize Social
Security.
Advisor Confirms McCain Supports
Part D Means-Testing
On Monday, a
top McCain campaign advisor, Douglas
Holtz-Eakin, confirmed McCain’s
support of Medicare Part D (prescription drug
benefit) means-testing. Under this plan,
wealthier seniors would pay more for premiums,
as they do under Part B. Said Mr. Coyle,
“Given his past comments on the program, it is
clear this position is not about a means-test,
but about John McCain’s philosophical problems
with Medicare.” Means-testing penalizes
the middle class and requires higher premiums
from wealthier seniors. As a result, many
seniors will find it cheaper to move to private
insurers, leaving behind the sickest and
poorest.
AIG Execs’ Retreat After Bailout
Angers Lawmakers
Less than a week
after the federal government lent American
International Group Inc. (AIG) $85
billion to avoid bankruptcy, company executives
took a $440,000 vacation to a posh California
resort. The final tab at the St. Regis
Monarch Beach resort, courtesy of American
taxpayers, included $200,000 for hotel rooms,
$150,000 for catered banquets, $23,000 at the
hotel spa, $1,400 at the salon, and $10,000 for
“leisure dining.” Sen. Obama said at
Tuesday’s presidential debate, “Those
executives should be fired.” He also
insists AIG executives pay back the Treasury to
cover the costs of their vacation.
Crippled by huge losses from defaulted
mortgages, AIG was forced to accept the $85
billion loan that gave the U.S. government an
80% stake in the company.
Alliance
Travel
Alliance President Kourpias
and Director of Government and Political
Affairs Richard J. Fiesta
traveled to Nashville, Tennessee this week,
offering the media the retiree point of view on
the McCain- Obama debate.