Bill Text: MI SR0062 | 2011-2012 | 96th Legislature | Introduced
Bill Title: A resolution to denounce the federal budget proposal introduced by Congressman Paul Ryan that attacks Medicare and Medicaid and puts at risk the health and well-being of the next generation of senior citizens in Michigan and across America; and to memorialize the Congress and the President of the United States to oppose any action that would eliminate traditional Medicare or convert Medicaid to a block grant program.
Spectrum: Strong Partisan Bill (Democrat 11-1)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2011-06-16 - Referred To Committee On Appropriations [SR0062 Detail]
Download: Michigan-2011-SR0062-Introduced.html
Senators Johnson, Hunter, Anderson, Warren, Hopgood, Gregory, Bieda, Whitmer, Smith, Gleason and Young offered the following resolution:
Senate Resolution No. 62.
A resolution to denounce the federal budget proposal introduced by Congressman Paul Ryan that attacks Medicare and Medicaid and puts at risk the health and well-being of the next generation of senior citizens in Michigan and across America; and to memorialize the Congress and the President of the United States to oppose any action that would eliminate traditional Medicare or convert Medicaid to a block grant program.
Whereas, The congressional Republican plan would eliminate comprehensive health care provided by the popular Medicare system and replace it with an experimental voucher program that would force the next generation of seniors to choose between the medical treatment they need and the medical treatment they could afford; and
Whereas, The congressional Republican plan would shift the colossal burden of rising health care costs from the federal government to tomorrow’s seniors, causing at least 37,100 Michigan seniors to pay over $3.8 million more for annual wellness and more than 97,700 Michigan seniors to pay $55 million more for prescription drugs in 2012. The congressional Republican plan to end Medicare will increase out-of-pocket health care costs for a typical 65-year-old Michigander by $6,880 in 2022--more than twice the cost under current law; and
Whereas, The congressional Republican plan redistributes wealth upward to the affluent, who typically enjoy better health, leaving the poorest Americans with less benefits and larger health care expenses; and
Whereas, Medicare benefits to seniors are correlated with a drop in the poverty rate of people 65 years or older from over 35 percent in 1959, before Medicare existed, to 8.9 percent in 2009; and
Whereas, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is surreptitiously reporting that his federal budget proposal decreases the costs of health care by facilitating a more competitive health services market, but it would actually add $30 trillion to total health insurance costs over the next 75 years (as calculated by the Congressional Budget Office) due to private insurance having much higher administrative costs than Medicare; and
Whereas, The congressional Republican plan would renege on the promise made to Americans by President Johnson that they would not "be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine," nor fear that illness could "crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy dignity in their later years"; and
Whereas, The congressional Republican plan would transform Medicaid into a block grant program, and funding for the program would be cut by $180 billion through 2020, costing Michigan at least 49,200 private sector jobs over the next five years; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate, That the members of this legislative body denounce the budget proposed by Representative Paul Ryan and congressional Republicans and declare their support for Medicare and the millions of lives that it has saved from death, disease, and poverty; and be it further
Resolved, That we memorialize the Congress and the President of the United States to oppose any proposal that would eliminate Medicare as it has traditionally existed and change the Medicaid to a block grant program; and be it further
Resolved, That copies of this resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the members of the Michigan congressional delegation.
