Today, the House committee on the Budget is considering the FY 2012 Concurrent Resolution, also known as the “Ryan Roadmap.” In a marathon session that will last well into the evening, Congressman Paul Tonko introduced an amendment to protect seniors and Medicare. By a vote 22-16, the House Committee on the Budget voted against the amendment, along party lines.  This was the only amendment offered to prevent Medicare’s privatization and is likely the last opportunity to amend the bill before it is brought to a vote before the full House of Representatives next week.

“The Republican majority has called their budget a Path to Prosperity,” said Congressman Paul Tonko. “However, their budget will pave a Road to Ruin for our nation’s seniors by ending Medicare as we know it, while building a Road to Riches for millionaires, oil companies, and other special interests by offering them even more handouts and special tax breaks. This budget is all pain and no gain for our nation’s middle class and working families. My amendment ensures that Medicare is guaranteed and that seniors have a reliable and reasonable source of dignity and security as they age. It is a shame that this amendment was not adopted, but I will continue to fight to protect Medicare.”

The amendment ensures that Medicare will not be dissolved and replaced with a voucher system. It protects Medicare, as well as other vulnerable health programs – including Tricare coverage for our troops and military families and VA coverage for our veterans – from being subject to privatization or arbitrary spending caps that would cut benefits and effectively ration care.

Congressman Paul Tonko continued: “Chairman Paul Ryan’s Road to Ruin budget ends Medicare. Taking trillions from seniors by ending Medicare and rationing senior care to balance the budget was not enough. They had to add insult to injury.  Where did they shift the savings?  If you guessed - permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and new tax breaks to corporations making billions - you guessed right. ”

The full text of Congressman Tonko’s remarks are below. To see those remarks, please click here.

[Remarks as prepared for delivery]

The Republican Road to Ruin budget, if enacted, will end Medicare. It will end a program that 46 million seniors and disabled individuals depend on for their health care. This gross injustice is made immeasurably more egregious and offensive by the fact that this is being done not to balance the budget, but to expand and permanently guarantee even bigger tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and to give new tax breaks to some of the world’s most profitable companies. Rather than the Path to Prosperity, this budget is more like the Road to Riches – a road paved in gold with lavish handouts for special interests, paid for and built with dollars from senior citizens who will see their hard-earned benefits rationed more and more with each passing year.

I have heard a lot of talk in the last few months about the need to make “tough choices” in the budget. The average senior on Medicare earns just over $19,000 a year. About one quarter of Medicare beneficiaries suffer from a cognitive or mental impairment and most have at least one or more chronic medical conditions. I ask my Republican colleagues, what exactly is it about stripping these Americans bare of their health and economic security that qualifies as “tough”? There is nothing “tough” about stealing from the poor and the weak to give to the rich.

Our seniors, on the other hand, know all about tough choices. Do I buy groceries, or do I buy prescriptions? Do I pay rent, or do I pay medical bills? It hurts, but how much will it cost? These are tough choices. These are life and death choices. With the passage of Medicare in 1965, we entered into a covenant with every American citizen. This budget breaks that promise and brings us back to square one.

The Republican voucher plan ends Medicare. Instead, seniors will be on their own, with a measly voucher and forced to buy insurance in the private market, where all decisions will be profit-driven. More profits for insurance companies on the backs of seniors - sounds like a Republican plan to me. This new voucher program amounts to a ration card.  The value of the voucher is not linked to increases in health care costs in the private market. Yet, the costs of private health insurance have risen OVER 5000% since the creation of Medicare. 5000%

The analysis of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, has estimated that in less than 20 years, the vouchers under the Ryan plan would pay just 32 cents on every dollar that a senior spends on health care.  Now, the Chairman has repeatedly stated that his budget gives seniors the same coverage as Members of Congress. Well, as a Member of Congress myself, I know that our health plans pay for about 72% of our health coverage. Not 32%.

According to CBO, the voucher program will provide a ration of $8,000 to seniors every year to purchase health care from private insurance companies.  Yet, the private insurance premium charged by Blue Cross in 2010 for a Member of Congress was $9012.38  Does anyone honestly believe that sick senior citizens and people with permanent disabilities will be able to find coverage from private insurance for $8,000 when they charge $9,000 my friends here in this room?

According to the Wall Street Journal, the average costs of health care for seniors over 65 in 2009 was $11,743.  If an insurance company were to take on $11,743 of risk for $8,000- they would be out of business in short order.  But Republicans don’t believe their insurance company buddies will actually offer coverage for $8,000 or even for $11,743 just to break even.  They know that seniors will have to go into their pockets for thousands of dollars as this plan hands Medicare over to private insurance companies – to make even more profits. 

This budget takes trillions from seniors and rations their care, and where does it shift the savings?

If you guessed - permanent tax cuts for millionaires and new tax breaks to corporations making billions - you guessed right.

After more than a year of hurling lies and demagoguery about death panels and rationing care, Republicans on the panel before us today demand that we restrict seniors to a health care ration card and ensure that those who cannot afford coverage on their own will be left to suffer or die. They pay lip service to Americans’ responsibility to share the burden and instead steal from those who cannot afford an expensive lobbyist and give to millionaires and billionaires and companies who can afford much, much more.

I am not playing politics. I was educated as an engineer.  I have a deep appreciation for numbers and calculations. I also know that our budget is statement of priorities and values, not purely dollars and cents. I respectfully, and honestly, disagree with the values and priorities in this Road to Ruin budget.

It is for that reason that I am offering this pro-Medicare amendment today on behalf of myself and several of my colleagues. This amendment expresses the sense of the House that quality health care programs for seniors, members of the military and their families, and veterans should be protected. My amendment states that these programs should be excluded from any legislation that would replace the quality care and health security they provide with vouchers, rations or so-called “premium support.” It also states that we should not be setting arbitrary caps on spending for these programs. In short, this amendment would ensure that Congress will not turn Medicare, Tricare, or VA health benefits into a voucher system that rations care for our seniors, troops, and veterans.

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