Posted on 08/13/2004 10:23:26 AM PDT by qam1
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is asking America's "greatest generation" to help catapult him into the White House this November, wooing them Wednesday with senior-friendly policies on the key issues of healthcare, Social Security and prescription-drug costs.
"With rising healthcare costs and a dragging economy, our seniors and families are squeezed like never before," Kerry said in prepared remarks.
"Seniors are cutting their pills in half, and we're told the best we can do for them is a Medicare bill that's riddled with waste and handouts to drug companies. We can do better."
Kerry picked up a key endorsement Wednesday from the 3 million-member Alliance for Retired Americans, which has given him a lifetime voting record of 100 percent.
"It's time America's seniors have a president who cares about them and fights to protect and preserve programs important to them," ARA President George J. Kourpias said in a statement announcing the endorsement.
"We need a leader who understands our needs and will protect the rights seniors worked a lifetime to earn."
As indicated by his perfect voting record with the ARA, Kerry's policy positions have been friendly to seniors. He has come out for drug re-importation from Canada, a policy advocates say could save Americans millions of dollars each year, and has opposed the privatization of Social Security.
These policies are in opposition to those of the Bush administration, the consequences of which the campaign outlined in a report issued Wednesday titled, "We're Turning the Corner? Towards Sky-High Drug Prices Across the Country."
The report builds on Democrats' criticisms of Bush when he says the United States, especially the U.S. economy, is "turning the corner."
It compares the prices for the four bestselling drugs among seniors -- Prevacid, Celebrex, Zocor and Plavix -- in 21 states vs. the cost of those same drugs in Canada. The average difference between the costs in the United States and Canada was 201 percent, the study found.
"George W. Bush claims that 'we're turning the corner and not looking back.' Seniors across the country may be scratching their heads when they look at the prescription-drug bills," the report said.
The campaign also hung the day's event on a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health that indicated nearly half of Medicare beneficiaries didn't like Bush's new Medicare law.
One-quarter of respondents to the Kaiser/Harvard study said they had a favorable impression of the bill.
"Frankly, part of the way we're doing so well is because of what President Bush has done," campaign pollster Mark Mellman said Wednesday.
The Bush administration "stands in direct opposition to the issues seniors really care about," he said.
Mellman and ARA Executive Director Ed Coyle offered their vision in a conference call with state leaders of the newly announced Seniors for Kerry-Edwards organization, which the campaign rolled out Wednesday.
Tony Francetta of Florida informed the campaign volunteers were calling 40,000 swing senior voters to ask them to voter for Kerry, while Dave Baldridge of New Mexico spoke of targeting seniors among the state's Indian tribes.
State head Jim Diers promised callers Oregon's seniors would "do our own part in electing Kerry-Edwards."
Marty Berger said Pennsylvania's organization was working to educate seniors, especially on Bush's prescription-drug bill.
Bush made "a big mistake in pushing this bill, which he thought would win him this election, and that I think will lose him this election," Berger said.
Throughout his campaigning Kerry has stood in good stead on these domestic policy issues, beating Bush almost without exception since he emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Seniors constitute a rich political base for any candidate. According to data from the ARA, nearly three-quarters of registered seniors voted in 2000, compared to about one-third of Americans age 18-34. Seniors also accounted for one out of every four votes in that election, the group said.
"Seniors are a formidable political force and will decide who is the next president of the United States," Kourpias said.
The re-election campaign for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney fought back against Kerry's allegations.
"I find it somewhat ironic that (Kerry) now has a so-called specific plan when as a member of the Senate Finance Committee he never presented anything at any time to the conference committee about his particular ideas, and of course didn't vote on the final product," Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., said in a conference call Wednesday.
"What we did was heed President Bush's request to add prescription drugs and modernize Medicare for America's seniors. That was an extremely difficult thing to do, because the Democrats didn't want Republicans to get any positive spin from helping seniors with Medicare," Thomas said.
The White House issued a fact sheet Wednesday afternoon outlining the benefits of the prescription-drug bill, which it said helps seniors save money on drug costs.
According to the White House, more than 4.1 million seniors already are using their prescription-drug cards. It also said the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Kaiser Family Foundation have found the cards are delivering "real savings" to Americans on Medicare.
"When we came to office, too many older Americans heard year after year after year the promise of prescription drugs for Medicare," Bush told supporters in Florida Wednesday.
"We got the job done."
But in the back-and-forth that has come to define this campaign, the Democrats had a ready response to that claim.
"If George W. Bush thinks he can mislead seniors into embracing a Medicare bill that gives billions to pharmaceutical companies, there's a bridge in Brooklyn we'd like to sell to him," campaign spokesman Phil Singer said.
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(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)
Translation: Vote for me and I will be better than Bush at robbing your grandchildern and great-grandchildern for you.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Gen-Reagan/Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
Prescriptions and medical care for anyone in this country, seniors included, are very high, too high for middle incomers without health insurance. I don't pretend to know the solution, but I do know how the national government has run Social Security into the ground, borrowing from that well for this or that, including Clinton's foray in Bosnia. The Post Office is another example, although somewhat more predictable. I cannot fathom how the government could possibly run a national health care system. It's obvious that these Hillary plans just want to tap into ALL THAT MONEY.
Will Party friends and regulars get the hearts, the kidneys, the special drugs and better hospitals? Who gets the research dollars and how? Will the government appropriate or set drug prices? How long might a referral or pre-approval take? What if drugs are tainted? How could suits be handled--against the government?
All this will do is change the currency: hard cash for services will be replaced by political capital. Those of us who aren't high up on the food chain might just as well take a number and call back next year.........espeically if we are not of the Party.
Note: At age 60, you can no longer be dialyzed in the UK. Public health care at work.
Amazing. He's found yet another way to divide the country. How many Americas are we up to now?
Perhaps if our side were to connect the dots between the FDA, the enormous liability issues due to Kerry's running mate and his ilk, and the high cost of prescription drugs, instead of playing another round of senior pander catch up, people might wake up to the real reason why things are as they are.
Hey, why not? When you get right down to it, the so-called "Greatest Generation" is even worse than the Boomers, having voted in every tax-and-spend 'Rat since FDR.
Kerry asking the 'greatest generation' for votes in exchange for promises is ludicrous. What the GREATEST GENERATION should treasure most is freedom. After all, that is what hundreds of thousands of them died for. What he and his wealthy running mate are doing now is shameful: disguising their own personal ambitions for power under a cloak of caring for others.
Consider the following bit of wisdom from centuries past:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent force of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse [benefits] from the public treasury [other people's hard-earned dollars]. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasure. , with the result that democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always foiled by dictatorship." - Alexander Tytler
Or, this wise observation by historian Edward Gibbons of the Athenian society:
"In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all--security, comfort and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."
Those charlatan politicians who sense our weaknesses and our tendencies to want things we cannot afford appeal to those weaknesses with promises to give us what they think we want most. The problem is they are not intending to give us out of their millions, or their billions. No, they are going to TAKE from every working person. WHY DO THEY DO THIS??? Is it out of a heart of love and caring? No, it is out of a desire for POLITICAL POWER.
Locate a copy of Congressman (1827-31, 18333-35)Davy Crockett's speech to Congress on the Constitutionality of such actions (Foundation for Economic Education publication entitled "Not Yours To Give"). Crockett said that his fellow Congressmen were not willing to give out of their own pockets for what they were so willing to vote out of others' pockets. He concluded,
"Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice, to obtain it."
They trade their PROMISES for our VOTES, and if elected, they amass power unto themselves. (In other words, their political currency is PROMISES, assuming they will exchange them for our VOTES. If held to some of their promises, they simply lay a tax on the people to pay for them. There is no altruism there, just a crass desire for power.
Are we better off with politicians who want us to become self-sufficient or those who want to keep us dependent on government?
Do we decide for slavery or for liberty?
This isn't about taking half of the amount of medicine needed, it is because of crooked pricing structure that makes 20mg and 40mg of prescription medication XYZ the SAME price. A doctor will write a prescription for 15 pills of XYZ at 40mg so that the patient can cut the pills and have 30 pills at 20mg.
Must have tested well to use this language though in a poll some place.
If my dad were still alive, I promise you, he would not vote for Kerry. He is a veteran of WWII, and was in France for much longer than Kerry was in Vietnam. My mother who is still alive and well, will certainly not vote for Kerry, either. I don't care HOW much he promises her in the way of prescription drugs, she won't cave.
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