Hillbilly Report - Medicaire

Rand Paul: "The Real Answer to Medicare Would be a $2000 Deductible"

RDemocrat — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:57:28 GMT

Seniors in Kentucky who are thinking about voting for Rand Paul better be careful what they wish for. It might come true. If we get our government hands off your Medicaire you better hope that Rand Paul does not get his way. You see, to turn everything over to the crooks on Wall St. Rand Paul and his ilk want to starve the beast. That means if you are a senior and on Medicare Rand Paul wants to starve YOU with a $2000 deductible if you get sick.
Rand Paul spoke his vision on Medicaire a while back and now Jack Conway is trying to let all seniors in Kentucky know what the Paul vision for our state and country entails. Listen to Paul for yourself from 2009:

Here is a transcript on what Paul has in mind for our seniors and the future of Medicare:

"Medicare is socialized medicine. People are afraid of that because 'oh, you'll say you're against Medicare.' No, I say we have to do something different. We can't just eliminate Medicare. But we have to figure out how to get more to a market-based system.
"It's counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but you have to pay for things if you want prices to come down. So you really need higher deductibles. And the real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible, but try selling that one in an election. But that's the real answer is you have to pay for things. And when you do, but you also get rid of price controls.
"So you raise the deductible, you get rid of price controls, and you allow more competition. And you may have to allow more competition from other parties. Nurse practitioners, we already have some. Pharmacists. There have to be ways to allow medicine to come down."

http://bluegrasspolitics.blogi...

Jack Conway released an ad pounding Paul on his stance, even as his campaign sought to distance itself from it's own extreme ideology:

Paul campaign manager Jesse Benton said that if elected, Paul will work to preserve Medicare for future generations.

See Conway's ad against the Mad "$2000" Doctor here:

This seat is wide open going into the home stretch. Any inroads we can make into Republican seats could be huge in curbing Democratic losses in November. The more ads we can run showing the insane ideology of Rand Paul, the better. Go here to help Jack Conway win:

http://www.actblue.com/entity/...

Rand Paul: Don't Cut my Government Money

RDemocrat — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:42:36 GMT

Boy, Rand Paul is fitting in very nicely in the hypocritical Republican Party of Kentucky. You know, the Republican Party that is against any government spending unless of course that spending is going to Corporate Welfare for the greediest and least patriotic among us as they outsource our jobs and cut wages. In the case of Rand Paul, he wants to slash government spending except of course the government spending that has made him rich.
Yes, Paul is calling for slashing government spending that goes to benefit you, but when someone threatens his own right to slop at the government trough, that is where the mad doctor draws the line. You see as an eye doctor Paul has become quite fat at the expense of government programs. Far from "cutting waste" he even requested more money from the government than was allowed, causing disputed payments:

But as a Bowling Green eye surgeon, Paul built his medical practice on payments from Medicare and Medicaid, the massive government health care programs considered to be leading contributors to the national debt.
Paul, the Republican nominee, has been paid $130,461 in Medicaid funds since 2006, about one-third of the sum that he billed the program, according to the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which administers that program. Doctors' Medicaid billings often are disputed in part, leading to smaller payments than they requested.

http://www.kentucky.com/2010/0...

And while he calls for the abolition of the Education Department to help educate children, wants to cut government programs that help the unemployed, disabled and would allow business owners to discriminate not surprisingly as a true Kentucky Republican hypocrite there is one group he thinks should be subsidized by the government:

"Physicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living," Paul told supporters in Louisville in May, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Just like the tea-baggers who nominated him and want to "keep government hands off their Medicaire" so goes Rand Paul. While he wants to cut any program that helps the poor, unemployed, farmers, the disabled, and practically anyone else, his own funds leeched off the government are just fine and dandy.

This was not lost on the campaign of Jack Conway, the only candidate in this race who has actually SAVED the taxpayers money, not hypocritically taken it from them:

"Medicare must be preserved and, as attorney general, Jack Conway has built a strong record protecting Medicaid by increasing fraud collections by 600 percent," Conway spokeswoman Allison Haley said.
"On the other hand," Haley said, "Rand Paul is once again displaying his hypocrisy by advocating cutting scholarships to our children, aid to farmers and nearly every other government program except the ones that line his own pocket."

Be careful what you wish for Kentucky, it might come true. If Rand Paul is elected he will fight against the programs that benefit you and for the money that flows from the government into his own bank account. He will hypocritically dole out Corporate Welfare to those who outsource jobs and slash wages while leaving our poor, disabled, and Kentucky farmers hanging out to dry.

In that sense Rand Paul is going to fit in quite nicely with the greediest and least patriotic among us.

Go here and help keep the selfish, hypocritical greed of Rand Paul out of the United States Senate:

http://www.actblue.com/entity/...

Hey Kentucky, Careful What You Wish For

RDemocrat — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:19:20 GMT

Here in my home state of Kentucky I have long watched in amazement as the voters of this state continually vote against their own interests. With the coronation tommorrow of "tea-party" candidate Rand Paul in the Republican primary, it only cements this point. You see, Paul and his tea-party backers want to "starve the beast" and slash the federal budget down to nothing. They want to do this because the Republicans here have convinced them that the very rich should not have to pay their taxes. The only problem with this approach is that many Kentuckians, including the "tea-baggers" are reaping handsome rewards from federal grants for needed programs.
Yes, in Kentucky we actually NEED your government hands on our Medicaire. If not, many Kentuckians would not be able to see a doctor:

For all the sentiment against creating a government health plan during the recent health care reform debate, close to 800,000 Kentuckians already use Medicaid, with its public funding and price controls. Several thousand more enroll monthly.
"There is a world of people out here who wouldn't have any access to health care at all if they didn't have Medicaid coverage. They literally wouldn't get to see a doctor, and they would just have to pray they didn't get sick," said Nelda Barnett, Kentucky president of AARP, a seniors' advocacy group.

http://www.kentucky.com/2010/0...

Yes, despite all the misguided anger here in the Bluegrass state, it appears as if Kentucky profits handsomely from the federal government. In fact, folks in Kentucky should be very happy on the return that they recieve on their investment of taxes to the government:

For every dollar Kentucky sends to Washington in federal taxes, it gets back between $1.51 and $1.82 in federal spending, depending on which study is consulted. Other states - mostly in the Northeast and Midwest - subsidize Kentucky by paying more in taxes than they get in return.

In fact, this "starving of the beast" would lead to a mass "starving of Kentuckians" as hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians depend on "the beast" for their own sustanance and welfare:

"There is a world of people out here who wouldn't have any access to health care at all if they didn't have Medicaid coverage. They literally wouldn't get to see a doctor, and they would just have to pray they didn't get sick," said Nelda Barnett, Kentucky president of AARP, a seniors' advocacy group.
Monthly entitlement checks go directly to Kentuckians, including $5 billion a year for Social Security retirement benefits, $2.5 billion a year for Social Security worker-disability benefits and $1 billion a year for Supplemental Security Income, which is disability aid for people with no work history.
The federal government also helps Kentuckians with flood insurance (to the tune of $2.1 billion a year), mortgage insurance ($877 million), crop insurance ($667 million), food stamps ($674 million), veterans disability benefits ($478 million), Pell Grants for college students ($182 million) and welfare for families ($181 million), to name some of the costliest assistance programs tracked by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Which begs the question with a "tea-bag" Republican poised to take the Republican nomination tommorrow, What would happen if the "tea-bag" vision actually came to fruition in Kentucky?? We all know that would culminate in lower taxes for the wealthy and a wet dream come true for the Chamber of Commerce but what would happen to the average citizen of Kentucky, many of whom participated in "tea parties"??

Well, as shown by the numbers above, hundreds of thousands of them would not be able to see a doctor. Our economy would crash and poverty would be even more rampant as the Social Security checks quit arriving. The disabled would starve and be left to live under bridges. A flood could wipe out the livelihoods of millions of Kentuckians with no recourse. Kentuckians would be foreclosed upon with no recourse. Kentucky farmers who lost their crops would have to wait until next year to see their livelihoods restored. Thousands of Kentuckians would starve. Our veterans would not have access to medical care. Poor families across the commonwealth would see their aid dried up, and it would result in more poverty and child hunger.

Which really begs the question of what are Kentuckians so mad at?? Do they really consider the money invested by our government in them and our state a "waste"?? Do they really know the consequences of the far-right ideology if it was actually enacted?? It would be a disaster for our state and indeed many places in the country.

So, as tea-baggers go to the polls to nominate Rand Paul tommorrow I really have one question for them. Will they put their money where their mouths are?? Since all this government waste is so vile and evil will they lead by example and stand up and give their Social Security checks back to the federal government?? Will they give up their Medicaire and Medicaid?? Will they give the Pell Grant they used to go to college back to the taxpayers in full?? Will they give back the foodstamps they used to buy that T-bone steak while some working folks like me are living off rice, beans and bologna??

We all know the Republican politicians in this state are insufferable hypocrites. However, Kentucky needs to realize that far from being an evil entity that steals your freedoms the federal government is greatly needed here in Kentucky for the citizens of this commonwealth so ripped up by the outsourcing of our jobs to just have the basics of survival. Food, healthcare, and education in Kentucky are all dependant on that ultimate evil that is the federal government.

All I can say to my fellow Kentuckians is that when they complain about a bloated beuracracy and "wasteful spending" that in many cases instead of preaching at us they should just look in the mirror. When one really looks at the federal government and who profits from it, be careful what you wish for Kentucky, it might come true.

Pre-Existing Condition Coverage Next Month??

RDemocrat — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:50:24 GMT

After a long fight we got a healthcare bill that passed and became law. While this infuriated those on the right, it also disappointed many of us here on the left who wanted single-payer, or at least something close. What all of us got was something that was very complicated, with some of it taking effect soon and other changes to come in following years. With that in mind no matter how we feel about it we will need to know what happens when and how we will be effected.
The Center for Rural Affairs has a summary of what we can expect from this bill now, soon and in the future and will be publishing future articles as the bill is phased in. They have some good information on how this will not only effect Rural America, but all Americans.

First, remember the right-wingers trying to convince everyone with insurance already that they would lose theirs if this bill passed?? Actually this bill does much to make their insurance better:

For people who already have insurance, the reform bill includes these provisions that will take effect in September:
* Bans lifetime caps on insurance coverage and heavily regulates annual limits until 2014 when they will be prohibited.
* Prohibits health insurance plans from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
* Requires new insurance plans to cover preventative services at no cost to consumers.
* Bans health plans from dropping people's coverage when they get sick (also known as rescission).

http://www.cfra.org/node/2696

Remember the old guy who wanted you to keep your government hands off his Medicaire?? His Medicaire will be stronger than ever:

For seniors on Medicare, the new law eliminates co-payments for preventative services, effective in 2011. It also begins to close the Medicare Part D "donut hole," a problem that can cost seniors with substantial prescription drug needs thousands of dollars. In 2010 seniors who fall into the donut hole will receive a $250 rebate, and starting in 2011 drugs for seniors in the donut hole will be eligible for a 50 percent discount. The donut hole will disappear completely by 2020.

For those like me who do not have insurance because of a pre-existing condition it appears as if next month we may see a temporary high-risk pool created until the practice of discriminating against pre-existing conditions ends in 2014:

For people without insurance, the new law extends the ability for parents to keep their children on their health insurance plan until their 26th birthday. In June of 2010 a temporary high-risk pool will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition. This high-risk pool will continue until 2014, when discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions will be banned.

This appears to conclude that those with pre-existing conditions will start being able to get some kind of coverage next month. It is pretty vague about those who simply cannot afford it. I can't really tell whether I should be happy about it yet or not.

It did include a little of a Populist streak as now executive compensation in the insurance companies will be regulated by how much an insurance company must spend on actual coverage:

Salaries and perks for the heads of insurance companies have received a lot of media attention as one reason insurance premiums keep increasing. Effective January 1, 2011, insurance companies will have to spend 80 percent of premiums on medical services for the individual and small group market, and 85 percent of premiums on medical services for the large group market. Insurers who don't meet these standards must provide rebates to policyholders.

I remain bitterly disappointed by this bill. However, I guess that could change next month if it actually benefits me. From what I have seen our country would have been much better off with a single payer system whether it realized it or not.

However, it appears as if those who already have insurance and those on Medicaire will be the ones who will really benefit from this at least early on. Makes one wonder why they were the ones the most mad about it...

Health Care Costs Rise at an Alarming Rate

RDemocrat — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:30:37 GMT

While the healthcare debate has devolved and sputtered, we still see the need for real reform almost daily. Whatever one might believe is the solution it is almost impossible for anyone to admit we have serious problem. While the real solution, single-payer has been off the table, healthcare costs continue to spriral through the kitchen ceiling. Reports today show just how bad the recession has made things.
Yes, the failed Republican policies that caused the recession/near depression of 2008 continue to nail the American worker and now, unemployed:

The recession has increased the nation's health care bills, forcing Americans to spend 5.7 percent more for health services and drugs in 2009 than they spent in 2008, according to new projections in a report by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
At the same time, health care costs are eating up an ever-larger portion of family budgets and of the nation's economic pie.
The report's authors attribute the increase in health care spending to the recession, during which millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their health insurance, and more people were added to the federal Medicaid rolls.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...

Worse yet, as bad as it has gotten without real reforms to the system that politicians simply don't have the want to, or guts to do costs are only going to continue to rise unabated and get much worse:

With the health care tab for last year coming to $2.5 trillion, health care spending now represents 17.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product - a 1.1 percent bigger portion of the nation's economy than in 2008.
The authors projected that under current law "health care spending will on average grow faster than the overall economy and that the public share of health spending will continue to increase over the next decade."
Without any changes to the system, the authors project that health care spending will nearly double by 2019, reaching $4.5 trillion.
At that point, health care spending will consume 19.3 percent of the gross domestic product - on its way to accounting for one-fifth of the nation's economy. It now accounts for about one-sixth of the economy.

And another group of folks continue to get fat at an extremely alarming rate, the drug makers:

One striking conclusion of the report is its projections for the increase in the cost of drugs. Spending on prescription drugs is up 5.2 percent in 2009, to $246.3 billion. The authors attribute this to an increase in the per-person use of drugs, driven by the need for antiviral drugs to treat H1N1, and by higher price growth in brand-name drugs.
By 2019, the report said, spending on prescription drugs is projected to reach $457.8 billion, with spending accelerating largely because of increases in drug prices.

All this just lead me to wonder more and more when Americans en masse will wise up and start demanding that lawmakers represent their best interests and enact a single-payer system. We are paying more and more for less and less care and millions of us remain uninsured. Our only guarantee are that we will be paying much more in the coming years and many more of us will be uninsured.

As one of those uninsured I can only take it with a grain of salt on the outside looking in at something I can nary afford. I can only feel disgust as Americans are insulted and seemingly do not mind. It is time that single-payer comes "back to the table" and that the American people demand it. When will America finally stop running around in circles and her people demand real solutions that benefit them, like single-payer??

Unfortunately, I will not hold my breath.

The Real Truth About Universal Healthcare and Seniors

RDemocrat — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:46:35 GMT

You know, one of the most infuriating parts of the healthcare debate is the fact that folks are saying that all of us as Democrats and our leaders want to march seniors and sick children in front of death panels consisting of Hades, Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer, Hitler and Attila the Hun who will in turn euthanize with great malice and vengenance.
One of the main evil entities being created right now by the right-wing looney-tunes is Nancy Pelosi. She has been widely vilified as wanting to kill your grandmother, babies and anyone else who stands in her way.

But the truth is that the scare tactics used against Ms. Pelosi is pure idiocy. I have not agreed with her every move but overall I think she wants to try and foward as Progressive a bill as possible. Love her or hate her the plain truth is the woman definately is not trying to hurt or euthanize anyone and has a pretty good record of fighting for the least among us.

She has released a video to seniors attempting to dispel some of the ridiculous notions the right-wing looney tune noise machine has implanted on too many. It details how H.R. 3200 actually helps seniors:

Of course with nobody hollering and screaming and accusing folks of being nazis and wanting to murder innocent Americans to save money who will listen??

Republican Hypocrisy on the Deficit and Healthcare

RDemocrat — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:12:46 GMT

Boy, to hear many Republicans tell it they have been the watchdogs of fiscal responsibility. They have recently begun squawking about deficits and spending. They try to say our country is spending too much and we cannot afford Universal Healthcare. Of course, they conviently leave out the facts about why our deficit is where it is right now.
When President Bush took over control of the White House with a Republican Congress they inherited the largest surplus ever in American History and preceded to pick it clean:

President Clinton ran a unified budget surplus of $236 billion, the largest surplus in American history. Budget surpluses were expected to continue for another ten years when President Bush took office in January 2001. But under the Republican's watch, the federal budget plunged back into deficit, reaching record levels. By 2002, the unified federal budget had returned to a deficit of $160 billion and this year, President Obama inherited a record deficit of $1.3 trillion.

http://dpc.senate.gov/dpcdoc.c...

Republican hypocrites were mysteriously mum as George W. Bush and the Republican Congress raised the debt limit seven times and doubled our national debt:

Republicans presided over the largest explosion of debt in our nation's history. During his time in office, President Bush requested that Congress increase the statutory debt limit seven times. The day before George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, the public debt was $5.7 trillion. On the last day of President Bush's presidency in 2009, the public debt stood at $10.6 trillion, approximately $35,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.

And for all their railing about unemployment and the Obama stimulus, they caused all the problems Democrats must fix:

Not only did President Obama inherit the dismal fiscal situation created by the Republican Deficit, he also inherited a country facing very dire economic conditions. Economic growth declined dramatically from the third quarter of 2008, when there was a negative one-half of one percent of growth, to the fourth quarter of 2008, when the economy contracted at a rate of over six percent. We are in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, financial and housing crises, and we have lost over 3.3 million private sector jobs in the last six months alone.
In February, the economy lost 651,000 jobs, marking the fourteenth straight month of job losses for non-farm payrolls. Job losses in the last four months have averaged 646,000. Total job losses since the start of the recession now total 4.4 million, with over half of the losses (2.6 million) occurring in the past four months. [24] And though the nation has experienced the sharpest declines over the last year, job creation has been consistently weak throughout the eight years of the Bush Administration. Overall employment growth has averaged around only 22,000 jobs per month[25] - only a fraction of the 150,000 jobs needed each month to keep up with population growth. It was not uncommon to see monthly job gains of 300,000 and even 400,000 during economic expansions during the Clinton Administration.[26]

The facts of the matter are irrefutable. The Republicans took a budget deficit and surplus and proceeded to pick it apart. They whimpered not in protest as Republican lawmakers wasted money on a series of failed initiatives that ultimately crashed our economy. They cared not one iota about debt or deficits until President Obama took office and was force to take desperate measures to head off an impending depression caused by Republican policies of War and Corporate Welfare:

Let's start with the Republicans. They talk a good game about reining in federal spending, but they bear as much responsibility as the Democrats for the nation's $11 trillion in total debt.
It's sometimes hard to remember that when President Clinton left office in January 2001, the federal budget actually was in surplus. Yet by the time President Bush left town, the federal government was running a nearly a $1 trillion deficit thanks to spending on the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, the bank bailout and increased spending on prescription drug coverage for Medicare beneficiaries.
But the Republican deficit hawks didn't really start squawking about government spending until President Obama took office and proposed a $700 billion stimulus package for the ailing economy.

http://blogs.reuters.com/comme...

In fact, Republicans set out on a crusade to "starve the beast" and actually thought huge budget deficits were a good thing. They would be able to end social programs that benefit millions of Americans all while cutting taxes on themselves and raising them on working middle-class families:

The other camp in the tax-cut crusade actually welcomes the revenue losses from tax cuts. Its most visible spokesman today is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who once told National Public Radio: ''I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.'' And the way to get it down to that size is to starve it of revenue. ''The goal is reducing the size and scope of government by draining its lifeblood,'' Norquist told U.S. News & World Report.
What does ''reducing the size and scope of government'' mean? Tax-cut proponents are usually vague about the details. But the Heritage Foundation, ideological headquarters for the movement, has made it pretty clear. Edwin Feulner, the foundation's president, uses ''New Deal'' and ''Great Society'' as terms of abuse, implying that he and his organization want to do away with the institutions Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson created. That means Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- most of what gives citizens of the United States a safety net against economic misfortune.
The starve-the-beast doctrine is now firmly within the conservative mainstream. George W. Bush himself seemed to endorse the doctrine as the budget surplus evaporated: in August 2001 he called the disappearing surplus ''incredibly positive news'' because it would put Congress in a ''fiscal straitjacket.''
Like supply-siders, starve-the-beasters favor tax cuts mainly for people with high incomes. That is partly because, like supply-siders, they emphasize the incentive effects of cutting the top marginal rate; they just don't believe that those incentive effects are big enough that tax cuts pay for themselves. But they have another reason for cutting taxes mainly on the rich, which has become known as the ''lucky ducky'' argument.
Here's how the argument runs: to starve the beast, you must not only deny funds to the government; you must make voters hate the government. There's a danger that working-class families might see government as their friend: because their incomes are low, they don't pay much in taxes, while they benefit from public spending. So in starving the beast, you must take care not to cut taxes on these ''lucky duckies.'' (Yes, that's what The Wall Street Journal called them in a famous editorial.) In fact, if possible, you must raise taxes on working-class Americans in order, as The Journal said, to get their ''blood boiling with tax rage.''

http://www.pkarchive.org/econo...

You see, the Republicans actually WANTED to run huge budget deficits and raise taxes on working Americans. They envisioned a time when America would get serious about taking care of it's citizens with things like universal healthcare and hoped by raising taxes on the working class and cutting them on the very rich coupled with running huge deficits they could convince Americans that they could not afford to fund programs that are desperately needed. It was a slick, but particularly vile and disgusting tactic that has at least partially worked. Just look at the healthcare protesters and Tea-baggers. Where were they when the real culprits were robbing the till?? They were mum.

And now the very forces that created all the debt and deficit have marshalled to convince the working men and women of America that they should not help themselves and their fellow citizens by providing Universal Healthcare. The real truth is that this program should be judged on it's own merits and how much it will help Americans and our fiscal responsibility in the long run:

So while I'm no proponent of profligate government spending, the current budget deficit shouldn't be used as excuse to squelch a potentially worthy government program that could benefit generations of Americans.
A proposal like health care reform should be judged on its own merits and not shelved simply because government spending is currently out-of-whack largely because of a need to stave off the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In considering something like health care, there's a need to take a long-term view-not the just impact on the federal budgets for the next few years.

http://blogs.reuters.com/comme...

In the ultimate show of hypocrisy Republicans are using their own failures in promoting fiscal responsibility and raising taxes on working Americans and small businesses to argue that those very working Americans and small businesses do not deserve relief from rising healthcare costs because of the deficit they themselves have created in the attempt to "starve the beast" and repeal the New Deal.

What is particularly sad is that millions of Americans have bought into their hypocrisy and hatred as evidenced in the current townhalls. If they only knew what they were screaming about....

More Sanity from The Young Turks

RDemocrat — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:42:53 GMT

Here are a couple of more reality, and sanity based videos from The Young Turks:

For Seniors Republicans are the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

RDemocrat — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:18:20 GMT

In many of the townhall meetings we have seen many enraged senior citizens. A lot of them are mad because they are scared that they will lose their health coverage or worse yet go before a "death panel" and be euthanized. All of this is part of a misinformation campaign waged to raise fear among them. One man in a town that slips my mind actually called for "keeping our government hands off his Medicaire".
This is not an attack on folks like him. I honestly feel sorry for him because someone has taken advantage of him and fed him lies that he believed. Before senior citizens line up to support the Republican Party as their new protectors though, I think they really should know about how these folks feel about programs such as Medicaire and Social Security.

Dick Armey is leading one of the groups that is spending huge money to defeat Universal Healthcare. Listen to some of what he says about programs that are vital to the interests of America's seniors:

Dick Armey views Mediacaire, the program so vehemently defended by the poor misinformed gentleman mentioned above as "tyranny". Seniors should remember that Republicans have been trying to roll back the changes of the New Deal which made such a big difference in so many of thier lives literally since before they were passed.

I hope seniors will take one minute too and consider what would have happened with their livelihoods if the Republicans would have been allowed to privatize Social Security like President Bush and so many of them wanted to do. Their retirement benefits would have been caught up in a system that was picked clean by thieves and crashed. Where would they be now?

The truth is no Democrat wants to take any coverage from any senior that already has it. It is ridiculous too for anyone to suggest we want to march them in front of "death panels" to decide their fate. We simply want everyone to be able to afford health coverage for themselves and their families and under the current system insurance companies have too much power.

I honestly hope Seniors will see who has fought for all the benefits they enjoy, and who would take them away if they had the chance. I think they will truly find the Republicans are the wolves in sheep's clothing.