Tag Archives: health care

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Tell Congress: Women Can’t Afford Social Security Benefit Cuts


National Women's Law Center
Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security!
Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line.
Call 1-866-529-7630 today!

Can women and their families afford deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

We don’t think so. But as the President’s Fiscal Commission meets this week, deep cuts to these and other vital programs for women and their families are on the table.

We need your help to make sure these proposals don’t stay on the table — starting with joining the National Call-In Day on Social Security.

Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security! Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

  • After providing your zip code, you’ll be given a choice of which of your state’s Senators to be connected with first. Call both if you possibly can!
  • Tell the person who answers the phone: I am a constituent living in [your state]. I am calling to tell the Senator to say “NO!” to cuts in Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits are especially important to women — and women’s average benefits are just $12,000 per year. Women can’t afford Social Security benefit cuts.

Why are we so concerned? Commission Co-Chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have proposed:

  • Cutting Social Security benefits for the vast majority of beneficiaries by raising the retirement age, lowering the cost of living adjustment, and changing the basic benefit formula.
  • Shifting more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to pay higher co-pays.
  • Cutting overall federal funding for domestic discretionary programs by about 20 percent, jeopardizing funding for child care, education, training, and other crucial investments.
  • Relying on spending cuts, far more than revenue increases, to reduce the deficit. While some tax expenditures would be curtailed, much of that revenue would be used to cut tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and corporations rather than to protect vital services or reduce the deficit.

Bottom line — these proposals would hurt women and their families. The reductions to Social Security would disproportionately hurt women, who depend more on income from Social Security than men do. And the changes to Medicare and Medicaid would place an extra burden on women, who are the majority of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and who already spend a higher percentage of their (already-lower) incomes on health care than men.

Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line. Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

This will be a long, hard fight and we are counting on you to stand up for women and their families.

Sincerely,
Joan Entmacher Joan Entmacher
Vice President, Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

P.S. To find out more about the co-chairs’ Social Security benefit cuts, check out our blog.
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Netflix under attack


Progressive Change Campaign Committee
Don't let Comcast block Netflix!
 

Tell the FCC: Protect the open Internet!

BREAKING: The New York Times just reported that Comcast is blocking Netflix unless a new fee is paid to Comcast — so Netflix’s price goes up and people use Comcast’s video service instead.

This outrageous abuse of power by Comcast comes on the very week that President Obama’s FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce whether he’ll fulfill Obama’s promise to protect the open Internet and Net Neutrality — which would prevent this type of corporate abuse.

The FCC needs to hear from us now, before the chairman’s big announcement this week.

Sign our message to the FCC: “Don’t let Comcast block Netflix or other online innovators for their own profit! Support the strongest Net Neutrality protections possible — and keep Obama’s promise.” Click here.

Then, please tell your friends. We’ll deliver thousands of messages to the FCC this week. Sign here.

What else could Comcast do if the FCC doesn’t protect Net Neutrality?

Internet providers like Comcast can drive their financial competitors (or political opponents) out of business by charging them more, for no good reason — exactly what’s happening right now.

For instance, Comcast could block or degrade iTunes, which competes with Comcast’s own online music store.

Worse, the FCC will soon decide whether to allow Comcast to buy NBC! Can you imagine what Comcast will do to block customers from getting video from ABC, CBS, and other media outlets? This is way more serious than just movies — the FCC’s decision impacts pretty much everything.

Tell the FCC to stop Comcast’s abuse of power and protect the open Internet. Click here — then pass it on.

Thanks for being a bold progressive,

Jason Rosenbaum, Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Forrest Brown, and the PCCC team

P.S. You can read excerpts from the New York Times story on the petition page.

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Republican Health Care Hypocrites


How is this for outrageous hypocrisy?

One incoming House Republican freshman is already complaining that the affordable health care coverage he gets as a Member of Congress — the same coverage that Republicans want to repeal for hardworking families — doesn’t start soon enough!

That’s right. Despite having his own health care paid for by the taxpayers, this incoming House Republican wants to tell hardworking Americans who are struggling to make ends meet that they’re on their own when it comes to affording coverage for their own families.

How many other Republican health care hypocrites do you think there are? Let’s find out.

Voice your outrage against Republican Health Care Hypocrisy. Sign our petition asking House Republicans if they’ll forgo their taxpayer-funded health care coverage before trying to repeal health insurance reform for hardworking Americans.

Our petition is simple. It asks whether House Republicans will stand by their words by refusing the tax-payer funded health care benefits they get before trying to repeal health care reform and make it harder for all Americans to get affordable coverage.

Let’s hold the Republicans’ feet to the fire by exposing all of the health care hypocrites in their ranks. Sign our petition today so we can hold them accountable starting right now.

Thanks,

Jon Vogel
DCCC Executive Director