Pat Meehan Report: Confronted on Medicare

[democracy1st]

Run time: 01:31 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzYN2QY11zk   Posted on YouTube: April 22, 2011 By YouTube Member: meehanreport Views on YouTube: 8951   Posted on DU: April 23, 2011 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1112

 
GOP Rep. Patrick Meehan Faces Constituent Anger After Breaking Campaign Promise To Not Privatize Medicare



CNN reports this morning that freshman GOP Rep. Patrick Meehan (PA) faced a “tough crowd” back home after voting for Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget proposal that would effectively end Medicare by privatizing it and handing seniors over to the private health insurance industry.

The news network notes that his vote for the Ryan budget was a common topic at town halls he attended this week in his home district, with constituents upset that he supported a “reform” that would actually gut Medicare:

Meehan was asked about entitlement reform and Medicare at nearly every town hall he went to. Some of his constituents say they’re worried about proposed Republican reforms to the Medicare system.

“Reform usually means cutting benefits, if it’s cutting benefits, no, I do not want that,” says constituent Bette Popiel.

The Meehan Report, a blog started by an upset constituent, captured this exchange between Meehan and an exasperated constituent at a town hall on April 20. The constituent demanded, “If you voted to abolish Medicare, how would you explain that to people in their 50′s out of a job?!”


http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/22/meehan-facing-heat-medicare/


Constituents shouldn’t just be upset with Meehan because he voted for a radical budget that would force seniors to pay the majority of their income just to be able to get health care, as a Congressional Budget Office analysis showed. They should also be outraged that he broke a specific pledge he made during a debate with his Democratic opponent Bryan Lentz during an event last fall.

During that debate, Lentz noted that the GOP was coalescing around Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare, and that Meehan would likely support it as well. Meehan flatly said that he wouldn’t vote for Ryan’s “agenda”:

LENTZ: Read the plan of Paul Ryan, who is the star of the caucus Pat hopes to join, turning Medicare into a voucher program, privatizing Social Security. So he may not be willing to admit that that’s the agenda of the Republican Party of Washington, D.C. But it is in fact the agenda.

MEEHAN: That’s the agenda, I’m not voting for. That’s the first and most important thing.



Meehan Report: Meehan Says He Wont Vote for Vouchers

http://youtu.be/NqznLQ8xLcc

[aquart]

1. Republicans steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Would you call that Hood Robbin'?

[lovuian]

2. the Republican reality is that their supporters are elderly

who depend on Medicare and Social Security

and the ramifications is the BASE is angry and ticked off

[papa3times]

3. Meehan

"That's the direction we want to go in." That says it all! They want to destroy medicare and turn it into a voucher program so their constituents(the insurance companies) can get all of the money out of the system and into their corporate coffers where I'm sure they firmly believe it belongs anyway. Unregulated capitalism worked to well up until 1929 in this country. Why on earth did we change anything? The republicans are nothing but tools for their corporate masters.