On Friday - at 9 a.m. - Republicans will continue their push to end the Medicare guarantee with a Ways and Means Health Subcommittee hearing. Three facts that they should know:
Zero - The 2011 and 2012 GOP plans to end the Medicare guarantee were supported by ZERO House Democrats. Every single Democrat voted against the proposal because they wanted to protect the existing Medicare guarantee rather than abandon our nation’s seniors and individuals with disabilities. On the contrary, in 2011, 98 percent of Republicans voted for the plan. This year, 95 percent did.
1965 - President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Medicare program into law on July 30, 1965. Former President Harry Truman was among those on hand. During his 1996 run for president, Republican Sen. Bob Dole famously bragged about having voted against it: “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare... because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965."
$773,000 - The top 0.1 percent of earners would get an additional $773,000 tax cut - on top of the Bush tax cuts - under the Republican budget that ends the Medicare guarantee, according to the Tax Policy Center.
