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Are the Missouri GOP Senate Candidates in Favor of Privatizing Medicare? Filed on September 9, 2009

For Immediate Release:                         September 9, 2009

Contact:                                                Ryan Hobart    (573) 636-5241 Ext. 125

 

Are the Missouri GOP Senate Candidates in Favor of Privatizing Medicare?

Would Blunt, Purgason follow the advice of Sarah Palin?

Jefferson City, Mo – In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin offered suggestions for altering our health care system.

Her article suggests that less government involvement will improve our health care system.

She even suggests that Congress should look into privatizing Medicare by “providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage.”

The question this raises is: Do Missouri Republicans, specifically the two GOP Senate Candidates, agree that privatizing Medicare is an idea worth pursuing?

“Both Congressman Blunt and Senator Purgason have a long history of opposing programs that provide people health care, and Missourians, especially seniors, deserve to know whether or not they are in favor of privatizing Medicare,” said Missouri Democratic Party Executive Director Brian Zuzenak. “Currently, almost one million Missourians are enrolled in the Medicare program, and I am sure they would want to know if our leaders intend to transfer responsibility for their care over to private health insurance companies.”

Over the course of their careers, Congressman Roy Blunt and State Senator Chuck Purgason have both worked against programs that provide medical care to Missourians.

Senator Purgason championed the 2005 legislative proposal in the Missouri General Assembly that cut 100,000 Missourians from the Medicaid program and reduced benefits for another 200,000. (St Louis Beacon 7/23/09)

Congressman Blunt has voted multiple times to cut billions of dollars in Medicare funding. In addition, during recent months, he has said:

• "You could certainly argue that government should have never gotten into the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all to figure out how people could have had more access to the competitive marketplace," Blunt said. "The government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare and later with Medicaid. And government already distorts the marketplace" (The Hill 7/10/09)

 

•  “We've had Medicare since 1965 but, Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy.” (YouTube)

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