My wife just read a startling email from DFA about medicare cuts. Stunned, I went to read it myself. Thought I would put up a diary but stopped when could not find a source for this very serious DFA accusation:
http://act.democracyforamerica.com/...
The Senate is about to vote again on Fast Track for the TPP. President Obama is pressuring Democrats to vote for it, even with this cut to Medicare. We have just a few days to stop them.
Say it ain't so!
I did some frantic searching --nothing in news search about what should be major breaking news? WTF?
Then Jakkalbessie found another petition that did link a source, this one from Credo Action:
Stop the sneak attack on Medicare
71%
We've reached 53,278 of our goal of 75,000.
Sign the petition
Sign the petition to Democratic leaders in Congress:
“Don’t let Republicans use the debate over Fast Tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership to force cuts to Medicare.”
Name*
Email*
Zipcode*
You'll receive periodic updates on offers and activism opportunities.
Stop the sneak attack on Medicare
On Tuesday, something happened that no one expected: Thanks to the leadership of Senators Harry Reid, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders – who were powered by the activism of hundreds of thousands of CREDO members and our allies in the progressive community – Democrats were able to slow down the progress of Fast Track trade authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by blocking a key test vote.
But now the bill is moving forward as part of a rotten compromise package that would pay for Trade Adjustment Assistance for displaced workers with $700 million in cuts to Medicare funding.
We’ve stopped backdoor cuts to our vital social safety net programs before – and with strong grassroots pressure, we can do it again.
Sign the petition to Democratic leaders in Congress: Stop the sneak attack on Medicare.
The Trade Adjustment Assistance program, originally implemented in 1974, provides training, benefits and job-placement assistance to American workers whose jobs are offshored or eliminated because of import competition. But paying for Trade Adjustment Assistance by raiding Medicare would put our country’s most vulnerable senior citizens at risk.
The proposal currently being considered to fund Trade Adjustment Assistance includes an extension of the sequester on Medicare payments into the second half of 2024, which amounts to a $700 million cut to Medicare funding.1 While this isn’t a direct cut to Medicare benefits, it could still have devastating effects for America’s seniors. As the American Medical Association explained in a letter to Congress, these cuts would “impede improvements to our health care system” and “could lead to serious access to care issues for Medicare patients.”2
Sign the petition: Stop the sneak attack on Medicare.
Thanks to your activism, we were able to slow down the Fast Track bill’s progress in the Senate earlier this week. Fighting back against the Medicare cuts in the Trade Adjustment Assistance bill with grassroots activism gives us the opportunity to turn up the pressure even more.
The Fast Track and Trade Adjustment Assistance bills need 60 votes in the Senate to move forward, so if Democrats stand together as they did on Tuesday we can still stop these heartless cuts to Medicare, and potentially derail the rotten compromise to Fast Track the TPP.
Sign the petition: Stop the sneak attack on Medicare.
1. "What Does Sequestration Mean to Medicare?," The Medicare Newsgroup, May 15, 2015. http://www.medicarenewsgroup.com/...
2. "Healthcare groups object to Medicare cuts in trade bill," The Hill, April 21, 2015. http://thehill.com/...
Even if its a case of I missed it and its been covered before its worth talking and acting on today imo.
Hope those that think Medicare should be strengthened, not cut, will comment and push back.
Updates below the kos kwahsant thingie
Update 1
This is worse than I thought:
http://www.jdsupra.com/...
By way of background, under the “Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014” (PAMA), Congress “front-loaded” the Medicare reimbursement cuts under the Budget Control Act’s sequestration authority for FY 2024 to capture all of the sequestration savings during the first half of FY 2024, which fell into PAMA’s 10-year budget scoring window. Specifically, the 2% annual cap on Medicare provider payment cuts was raised to 4% for the first six months of FY 2024, and then was scheduled to drop to 0% for the second half of FY 2024.
Under trade legislation approved by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee (the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act), the sequester on Medicare spending would be extended to the second half of FY 2014, but the cap would be set at 0.25%. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this provision would raise $700 million. The full House and Senate have not yet approved the bills, but it suggests that lawmakers are getting increasingly comfortable with using future Medicare sequestration to fund Medicare and non-Medicare programs.
Update 2 See, also, this diary Sat May 16, 2015 at 12:31 PM MDT
ALERT: DFA Warning New TPP Provision Would Cut Medicare $700 Million to Help Pay for Trade Aidby
dweb823
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Update 3 H/T to Words in Action for another related diary
Fast Tracking the TPP--Pay No Attention to the Fine Print ... (Medicare cuts/Healthcare Cost Rises) http://www.dailykos.com/...