Voting Record (2009 - Every Senator & Representative) On Issues Affecting Seniors

New Alliance for Retired Americans Voting Record

Focuses on Health Care, Medicare, and Economics

 
On Tuesday, May 4th, the Alliance for Retired Americans marked Older Americans Month by releasing its latest voting record, a new report detailing the 2009 votes of every U.S. Senator and Representative on key issues affecting current and future retirees.  The document is available at CLICK HERE.   Once you are at the site you will see two "keys" explaining what the grading means, then click on your state to see how your state's senators and representatives voted on the issues most important to older people.

 “Higher scores show a commitment to improve health care, strengthen Medicare, and put seniors ahead of drug and insurance companies,” said Alliance President Barbara J. Easterling.  “The 2009 voting record showed a continuation of support for seniors in America, despite a tough economy,” she added.  The voting record examines 10 key Senate votes and 10 key House votes, showing the roll calls on issues such as helping pre-Medicare retirees afford health care, as well as Medicare-covered preventive screenings for seniors.  Several votes addressed national spending on health care, including historic votes on epic health insurance reform.

One hundred eighty-three U.S. House members achieved perfect scores of 100% in 2009.  One hundred and eighty-five received failing grades (60% or lower), with 16 receiving scores of zero.  Of the House members appointed to the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010, Reps. John Spratt (D-SC) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) scored 100% with the Alliance; Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) scored 90%; Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) scored 10%, and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) scored 0% (Hensarling represents Texas Congressional District 5, is said to have senatorial aspirations, was a protege' of Phil Gramm who was the architect of the deregulation behind much of the Wall Street melt-down).  The panel is considering major changes that would affect the financial future of Social Security and Medicare.

Fifteen members of the U.S. Senate achieved perfect scores of 100% in 2009, while 43 received failing grades of 60 percent or lower.  Both Senators from Minnesota, AmyKlobuchar (D) and Al Franken (D), received perfect scores in 2009.  The same was true for both of the Vermont Senators, Patrick Leahy (D) and Bernie Sanders (I).  However, all of the Senators from the states of Georgia, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming scored zero.   Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has the lowest current lifetime Senate score with the Alliance, 1%.

Health Care Reform - Understanding the Details

 HEALTH CARE REFORM -  MANY BENEFITS

Amazingly many older Americans remain confused and fearful about what health care reform means and how and when the changes will become effective.  Here, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, are some highlights to answer those questions:

1) By 2014 most people will be required to have health insurance.  Those not qualifying for hardship exemptions and decline to buy insurance will be assessed a penalty.

2) Those lacking access to health care will be able to get coverage through a health Insurance Exchange with subsidies guaranteeing affordability.  Small business owners will also have access to similar exchanges.  Each exchange must include at least two multi-state and one non-profit option.  Optional levels of coverage will be offered with premium subsidies for families at up to 400% of the poverty level (currently $88,000).

3) Employers with 51 or more employees can choose not to provide health insurance, however they will be assessed a penalty for each employee receiving subsidized insurance through an exchange.  No mandate requires employers to provide insurance!  But, those who decline will find that there is a cost attached to their decision.

4)  New regulations will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions or for jacking up premiums based on gender or current or previous health status.

5) Medicaid will expand to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (currently $29,327) for a family of four.

6) Lifetime limits on health care coverage will be banned.  No longer will catastrophic illness, disease or accident mean bankruptcy!

7) Dependent adults will remain covered under their parent's policies up to age 26.

8) Seniors should know that there are no death panels and that such decisions will remain between patient, family, clergy of choice and health care professionals.

9) Older Americans will benefit from the bill's ending of over payment to Medicare Advantage plans,  phased elimination of the Part D "doughnut" hole,  elimination of co-payments for "wellness" and "preventative" treatments, and provisions providing support and assistance to those elders who choose to "age in place".

The Christian Science Monitor reports, "Buried within the ..health care reform law is a small provision that in years to come could have a major effect on the kinds of treatments that American patients receive.

This provision requires the federal government to set up... a “Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.” It sets aside $500 million in seed money for this new nonprofit organization, which is supposed to become a national guiding force for comparative effectiveness research.

Comparative effectiveness research takes a particular health problem, then pits different ways of treating that problem against one another, in an attempt to find which, if any, is a more effective way to maintain or restore patient health".

Meanwhile, as the question of cost was central to the debate, the Congressional Budget Office reports, "...the law will reduce the number of uninsured by 32 million people in 2019 and while the new health care legislation will tote a heft cost of $938 billion over ten years, the changes will act to reduce the deficit by $124 billion.

Tea Party: Sufferers of Obama Derangement Syndrome

Numbers can be misleading, and we would all be well advised to take a very long, slow, deep breath before we get knotted up over the Tea-Party or Republicans with entrenched and pathological hatred of liberals in general and President Obama in particular.

Let me offer you some for instances.  Depending on whose poll you happen to look through, 18% to 35% of Americans say they "support" the so-called Tea-Party movement.  Gasp! That's a third of all Americans you say.  And you are correct.  What those numbers do not indicate is that the majority of those "supporters" are white, male, republican and over the age of 45.  They are the same gaggle of dysfunctional reactionaries (angry old white guys) who thought that dry-drunk sociopath, George W. Bush, was the bee's knees and that the catastrophically ill-advised invasion and occupation of Iraq was quiet a great notion.  They are the same intellectually stifled few who rely on base response from their lizard-like brain stems to guide them through life.

And, one really has to point out, according to those figures at least 82% to 65% of Americans are either indifferent or hostile to the Tea Party mob.

John Avion, of the Daily Beast adds a new phrase to our political lexicon: "Obama Derangement Syndrome"  wherein 67% of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist, 57% believe he is a Muslim,  45% think he was not born in the U.S. and is ineligible to be president, 38% say, "Obama is doing many of the same things Hitler did",  and 24% say they are suspicious that Obama very well could be the Antichrist".

As to that last Antichrist thingee, we all know don't we who the real Antichrist was, don't we? The deranged bozo who invented "blister paks"!

Those numbers come from a Harris poll taken at the most frothy point in the health care debate.  Now, well a week ago actually, The Washington-Post and ABC released their poll which further works to isolate the nutters suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome, henceforth to be styled as ODS...yeah, I noticed too, very close to "odds" as in how odd these people are!

The WAPO-ABC News poll renders the president's overall approval at 54%, certainly down from the post election euphoric high of 68% but on the rebound from his low of 50% back in December when Republicans were scaring the wits out of the gullible with horror stories about "socialized medicine ending Medicare" and of "Government Death Panels".  Those who strongly disapprove of his job handling is at 44%, down from a December high of 49%...the swing is 9% since his tribulations of December.

Sure, these numbers can be chewed up and regurgitated about certain benchmark issues such as the economy, our current wars, the deficit, dealing with Iran and other such arcane matters of policy or along demographic lines.  But, overall, more than half think the president is doing OK and those who "strongly"  disapprove, 33%, are the same old upper middle-class, angry old white guys who cheer led us into a disastrous war and a deregulation primed recession and tax cuts for the wealthiest of us that now contribute so much to our budget-deficit.

All I'm saying is, were I you, I wouldn't get my knickers in a knot over the Tea Party crowd, they're same lack-wits who would support Phyllis Schafley as May Queen.  Just saying.

Democrats' Senior Problem - Tall Cotton

You may have heard this somewhere else, but it is true.  You cannot win an election without the "senior" (65 & Older) vote!  You can't!  Here's why.

Even though older Americans comprise only 12% of the total population, when it comes to voting they turn out at least 10% more than the other age cohorts combined.  They regard voting as a "God-Given Right" and a responsibility of citizenship. And that is bad news for the Democrats, who used to be able to count on the senior vote as being in their hip pockets. That is changing faster than Texas weather, if it is not already entirely changed.

According to the Republican polling organization, The Tarrance Group, seniors now favor Republicans by a margin of 48% to 31%.  Overall Americans are very narrowly split between favoring Democrats over Republicans.  Granted it's a Republican pollster and thus slightly skewed to the right and there are gender, race and regional variables, overall it augers an upheaval in the November 2010 elections.

The seniors who came of age during the Great Depression and WWII are dying--thousands each month.  They are being replaced by people who came to age during the Eisenhower era, which was a much more narrow and conservative era.  They matured during what might very well be the economic zenith of America, the early to mid-sixties--and they know little of the reasons for the New Deal and liberal politics of their parents and grandparents.  To all too many of them, The Grapes of Wrath would be a poor vintage wine or something they cribbed notes for in senior English.

Compounding the misery for Democrats and President Obama in the upcoming 2010 elections is the fact that, despite their very focused efforts, the youth vote is unlikely to turn out as it did in 2008.

Recently Gallup released polling data indicating that people 65 (favor Republicans) and over were twice as likely as people 18-29 (favor Democrats) to say they were "very enthusiastic" about voting in the upcoming November Congressional elections. 

Midterm elections rarely carry momentous issues around which either party can mobilize huge numbers of voters and in a climate of economic uncertainty, catastrophic unemployment and disenchantment with incumbents; Democrats will find themselves, for the most part, in some very tall cotton.

Another political truism is that all elections are local and none are more so than midterm congressional races.  And while we can expect to see some large-scale "fence-mending" through the summer and fall there is little achievement that the Democrats can use to sway the older voters.  Consider Obama's historic, signature domestic health care reform victory--by 58% to 36%, it is opposed by older voters who find few benefits in the bill and who are still suspicious of Government Death Panels.  The one major thing that Democrats can point to with pride has no resonance with the demography they most need to convince.

As I said, tall cotton!

Tragic Murder In Missouri

 Murder is Murder: Despite the Species!

We humans, we hairless apes are an odd lot and nowhere else is our oddness more marked than our attitudes and behavior toward other animals.

We become misty-eyed while watching movies such as Benji, Greyfriars Bobby, Homeward Bound, My Friend Flicka and others, which project onto furry, four-legged animals  near super-natural and endearingly anthropomorphic qualities while, at the same time, we are eating other animals in hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, or perhaps a bit of barbecued venison.  Or maybe even feeding our cat or dog with a food made of horse-meat!

Some animals are cute and cuddly and welcomed into the home as pets to be pampered and fondled while the others are food to be hunted down and killed; or bred, raised and fed (often under near death-camp conditions) to be slaughtered en masse to feed the meat-hungry palates of the planet's most dangerous animal...homo sapiens!

No this is not a vegan or vegetarian diatribe against hunting or meat-eating.  It is merely a matter of wonderment as to how we can so adore one species while so brutally treating others.  It is also about a murder, which occurred in rural Missouri yesterday.

In many ways it was a minor murder as murders go....just what is sometimes called a "small death" by more calloused persons than I.

A horse was shot an killed while grazing in its pasture...I am shouting at you here!  It was grazing in its damned pasture nowhere near the woods so that it could have been mistaken for a deer.  But, you say, sometimes deer will mingle with horses and cattle so it might be easy to make that mistake.  That is a load of crap, I respond. The horse was shot through the heart with a high-powered rifle from thirty-feet away,  a mere ten-yards..a first down yardage measurement in football.  To measure it for yourself take 10 long paces stretching your legs as far as you can and at the end turn around and look back at your starting point--that is how close the murderer was to his victim.  And yeah, I'm betting a doughnut to a dollar that the killer was male.  It was no mistake and far enough from the road, woods and habitations that the killer was looking for an animal to kill..any animal would do!

Somewhere there is a man who is so devoid of empathy, compassion, sentiment, and decency that his impelling thoughts must be limited to; I am hungry, I am sleepy, I must relieve myself, and it would be fun to shoot and kill something today.  A somewhat functioning naked ape whose evolution became stymied at some point when he should have been acquiring higher sensibilities.  Would it be begging the question too much to suppose that maybe that process began when another, older male smeared blood on his cheeks from his first deer kill to get him over "buck fever" and set him on his way in one of the more pagan rites of passage to "manhood" celebrated by so many people calling themselves Christian?

You see, I think there is a relationship.  A relationship that empowers someone to kill a family pet, a $10-thousand dollar horse that was loved and nurtured and an affectionate source of comfort and joy to my sister-in-law and her companion on a small farm in Missouri.

They are bereft, grieving, angry, frightened, vulnerable, frustrated and in pain!  Somewhere nearby there is a man thinking, "I'm hungry, I want fried chicken".