McCain would mean deep cuts in Medicare and MediCal (LTTE)

[pinto]

From yours truly to local paper. The McCain camp is getting desperate but it irks me the amount of press their latest slide into slime has garnered. I thought locals might benefit from a brief reminder of the issues at stake in health care here at home. We're a county that went for Bushco, twice, with a large number of seniors and outrageous housing costs.

McCain would mean deep cuts in Medicare and MediCal

Lost in the bank failures, Wall Street's roller coaster ride and the resurrection of McCarthyism by the McCain/Palin campaign is a little noticed element of Sen. McCain's "health care" plan.

Massive cuts in Medicare and MediCal.

According to an aide in the McCain campaign, he would pay for proposed tax credits with reductions to both federal programs. (Wall Street Journal, 10/6).

An independent analyst estimates the cuts may total $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

McCain's agenda is clear - gut Medicare and MediCal in favor of private insurance companies. It's akin to his support of deregulation in the banking system and is apt to have similar failing results.

Some with secure jobs and stable health care benefits from their employer may well support the plan. But if the recent past is prologue, they should count on neither being secure, stable or solvent.

Health care coverage from private, for profit insurance companies becomes increasingly expensive and inefficient for all. That's not news.

Lost, as well, are the many seniors and disabled in the county, the state and the rest of the country who depend on Medicare and/or Medicaid as their primary access to health care. McCain's plan ignores them, or worse, discounts them.

Deregulation and dismantling of federal programs isn't an answer to the problem. It is part of the problem.