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WALKING ON THIN ICE

Letter opposing the Ryan Budget Proposal

April 28, 2011 No Comments

Sent this letter to Representative Marcia Fudge, Senator Brown and President Obama:

I am writing because it appears that the Democrats are actually supportive of cutting back Medicare and Medicaid, and I strongly, emphatically disagree with this position.

Cut defense spending instead. Our defense budget is larger than the rest of the world’s nations, combined.

When it comes to absolutely critical services, especially health care, which affects the mortality of people, I emphatically think that these services need to be nationalized.

Privatization is a means of extracting wealth from people and putting it in the pockets of the few, and it is not more efficient or less costly than nationalized health care.

Please do not support the Ryan budget proposal. It would move to a voucher system in 2022, forcing all seniors to purchase private insurance.

I cannot emphasize my feelings on this issue enough, having parents who are soon going to need to rely on Medicare and an older husband who uses it now, and for the first time in his life is able to obtain treatment for critical conditions. (He couldn’t afford health insurance before and was too “rich” to qualify for Medicaid.)

We paid for his cancer treatment out of pocket and it cost us most of our savings.

He has been in pain the past five years, severe pain, and now that he is finally on Medicare, he is able to get the hip replacement surgery he needs.

Thank you!

For more information, please read “Republican and Democratic Plans for Medicare and Medicaid Misguided: Push for Privatization Will Accelerate Costs and Deaths”

Letter to Senator Portman

April 26, 2011 2 Comments

Dear Senator Portman,

I am writing to express my support of cutting the defense budget rather than cutting social programs, especially Social Security and Medicare.

We rely on Social Security and Medicare–all my husband’s life, he had to find work as a contractor and hence never could afford health insurance. It was such a relief to us when he finally got on Medicare. Indeed, we had to pay for cancer treatment completely out of pocket and it wiped out much of our savings. My husband has been in severe pain for years, and now he can finally get the hip replacement he needs because he is finally on Medicare.

That such a system is being considered for cuts, even if the cuts would happen in the future and to younger people, is something that hits close to home. We’d like these benefits to be available for all people.

The defense budget of the United States is greater than that of the defense budgets of all the other nations of the world combined. This is a prime area for cutting. Please invest the defense budget in our own infrastructure and U.S. citizens’ health and wealth instead of defense.

Thank you!

Senator Portman can be contacted here: http://portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form and his toll-free phone number in Columbus is 1-800-205-6446.