Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz Highlights the Devastating Consequences of the Republican Plan to End

By DNC Press

A little more than a week after losing a heavily Republican leaning congressional seat in New York on the issue of the GOP effort to end Medicare, Republicans are doubling down on their support for the plan passed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and endorsed by 40 Republicans in the U.S. Senate. Today, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement underscoring the devastating consequences of that plan for elderly Americans:

The Republican plan for balancing the budget on the backs of America’s elderly, poor, and vulnerable has been whole-heartedly embraced by Republicans in Congress. But their plan is more than wrong-thinking, it’s just plain wrong.  And you don’t have to dig too deeply to see why: it would end Medicare as we know it.

The Republican plan would ‘save’ money not by reducing costs but by passing them along to seniors in Florida and across the country. That’s not just me talking – the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that seniors would end up paying 68% of their premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs under the Republican plan. In fact, a decade from now their plan would add $6,400 to the average senior’s annual medical bill. That means more elderly Americans would face an awful dilemma: purchasing the basic goods they need to live or the health care they need to stay well.

And what would be accomplished through the additional suffering the Republican plan would impose on seniors? More tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans because the Republican plan would direct that money into the pockets of the wealthiest Americans with tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. I won’t have such a plan on my voting record or my conscience, and America can’t afford to put such a plan on the books.

Source: DNC Press Release