Marco Rubio Wants To Take Away Your Medicare

May 25, 2011.

Remember this day, readers.

It's the day that Senator Marco Rubio placed his ideology ahead of the interests of his constituents and voted to take away your Medicare.

In an op-ed that appears in today's Miami Herald, Senator Rubio defends his vote by trotting out the personage of his immigrant mother and father like he always seems to do when he needs to justify a particularly unpopular decision. I mean, really, who can disagree with a grown man who is making all these tough decisions thinking about his Moms and Pops, particularly his Immigrant Moms and Pops.

For me, Medicare is not a political talking point. My parents immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. They worked hard for over 40 years to provide their children the chance to do all the things they themselves could not. But they never made much money.

As a result, they retired with precious little in savings. Medicare was and is the only way they could access healthcare.

When my father got sick, Medicare paid for his numerous hospital stays. And as he reached the end of life, Medicare allowed him to die with dignity by paying for his hospice care.

Like most 80-year-olds, my mother has several age-related ailments. Without the access to quality healthcare that Medicare pays for, I cannot imagine what life would be like for her.

America needs Medicare. We need it to continue without any benefit reductions for those like my mother currently in the system. And we need it to survive for my generation and my children’s generation.

When a politician says that something "is not a political talking point," he's lying to you. Everything is a political talking point. Otherwise, he wouldn't be called a politician.

Rubio then demonstrates that it's not a political talking point by launching into a highly partisan attack against Democrats and claims they don't have an alternative plan.

Either show us how Medicare survives without any changes or show us what changes you propose we make. Anyone who supports doing nothing is a supporter of bankrupting Medicare.

Where is the House Democrat plan to save Medicare?

Where is the Senate Democrat plan to save Medicare?

Where is President Obama’s plan to save Medicare?

They have no plan to save it, and they do not plan to offer one. They have decided that winning their next election is more important than saving Medicare for my mother and retirees like her.

Actually, Democrats do have a plan. It's called Medicare. It's worked for years and can continue to work if conservative ideologues like Marco Rubio let the Bush tax cuts expire and close the loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy avoid paying billions of dollars of taxes every single year. It also would help if Republicans would stop supporting billions of dollars of subsidies given to very profitable and healthy oil companies every year. But doing that would require that Rubio slap the hand that feeds him and the Republican Party.

Speaking of plans, look through the op-ed and try to find the details about how Marco and his Republican companions plan on "reforming" Medicare. You won't find it, because it's too frightening and too radical to incorporate in an missive designed to elicit support for his point of view.

Marco Rubio and the other U.S. Senators who voted to take away American's Medicare yesterday are increasingly out of step with the electorate and are banking on an American public that is wont to forget votes like theirs after a few years. I want to make sure we all remember Rubio's vote.

May 25, 2011. Remember.




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