DEMOCRATS STILL RIDING ‘TWIN HORSES OF HYPOCRISY’
Statement by 60 Plus President Jim Martin
Press Conference, Peter Lisagor Room, National Press Club, 10:00 a.m., January 31, 2000

Council for Affordable Health Insurance Survey Results on Prescription Drug Coverage
Washington D.C.– As head of a non-partisan, national senior citizens’ organization, I reacted with cautious optimism when I heard President Clinton propose prescription drug coverage for all seniors.

That caution was tempered and shaped by nearly four decades in this political town. After hearing the President and his Secretary of Health and Human Services and various White House personnel sing the ‘low-cost, no-cost’ features of the plan, my optimism turned to downright pessimism, especially when Democrats such as Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) called the plan ‘over-reaching’.

‘Here we go again,’ I concluded, “scaring seniors for political gain.”

Someone once said, and unfortunately, it’s so true that one party has been riding twin horses of hypocrisy– Social Security and Medicare– for more than thirty years. Why? This demagoguery is a proven vote getter.

On the prescription drug issue, both the National Bi-partisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, as well as the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program offer prescription drug coverage. Members of Congress and government workers have FEHBP coverage. Surely if its good enough for Congress its good enough for seniors.

What is even more disappointing is that President Clinton torpedoed the bi-partisan commission’s recommendations one day prior to the vote, by publicly repudiating its findings, effectively instructing his four nominees to oppose it. It passed 10-7 but failed a super-majority by one single vote.

So we’re back to ‘Mediscare tactics’, a technique brought to a fine art form in the 1990s.

My own conclusion is that there’s no free lunch in this town and this survey, I believe, confirms that.

According to the survey, seniors pay an average of less than $40 a month, far less than the President’s plan. I’m reminded of the catastrophic care fiasco a dozen years ago. When senior citizens were confronted with a huge tax increase, they caused this proposal to be overturned by Congress, the fastest reversal of a major piece of legislation in history, even though it passed by a nearly 3 to 1 margin. Seniors were shown on national TV chasing House Ways & Means Chairman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), with umbrellas and Rostenkowski plaintively exclaiming ‘but you don’t know what we’re trying to do for you.’ However, these seniors knew that they were going to be paying through the nose for another so-called ‘freebie.’

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