Obama Election Watch

Given his age and the fact that there are more than 700,000 retirees living in his home state of Arizona, one would expect that McCain would be a strong supporter of the nation’s Medicare program for senior citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth.

McCain has a highly damaging voting record on Medicare and other healthcare programs for the elderly. This makes him extremely vulnerable to voting citizens who care about or depend on Medicare. Nationwide, there are 36 million senior citizens in this country and they tend to vote in much larger percentages than the rest of the electorate.

Undoubtedly, too, there are another 50 million or more voting adult age children of seniors who are deeply concerned about the strength and reliability of the Medicare system.

Over his 22-year Senate career McCain has voted against Medicare programs more than 25 times. He has opposed adding funds to the program. He has supported efforts that would raise the age of eligibility for Medicare benefits. He has opposed increasing Medicare benefits for cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. McCain has voted to reduce home healthcare payments for Medicare patients. He has opposed increasing Medicare payments to hospitals that treat a disproportionate share of low-income patients.

McCain’s voting record is unquestionably destructive to the nation’s Medicare program.

Although McCain has never delivered a full-throated attack on Medicare, one could safely bet from his pernicious voting record that he would happily see the entire program go away.

Here are the details on his votes:

• In 2005 McCain voted to cut $6.4 billion from the Medicare budget.

• In 2005 McCain supported a measure that required Medicare participants to purchase medical equipment they used in their own home. Previously Medicare had paid for this equipment. The bill also cut payments to home healthcare providers for Medicare patients.

• In 2003 McCain voted to table a bill that would have provided $12 billion for additional treatments of Medicare patients suffering from cancer, heart disease or Alzheimer’s disease.

• In 2003 McCain voted against an amendment that would have increased Medicare funding by $4.1 billion.

• In 2003 McCain voted no on an appropriation of $2.4 billion to lower premiums for enrollees in the Medicare prescription drug plan.

• In 2001 McCain voted against an amendment that would have repealed a 15 percent cut in home healthcare reimbursements for Medicare patients.

• In 1997 McCain voted to raise the age for people to qualify for Medicare from 65 to 67.

• In 1997 McCain voted for a measure that would have instituted a co-payment for Medicare patients who were treated in their homes. Previously, the Medicare program paid for the complete cost.

• In 1996 McCain supported legislation that would have cut the Medicare budget by $158 billion over a six-year period.

• A year earlier in 1995, McCain voted to cut Medicare by $256 billion over the ensuing seven years.

• In 1995 McCain voted against an amendment that would have restored $14.5 billion in Medicare payments to hospitals that treated a disproportionate number of low-income patients.

• In 1995 McCain opposed a measure that stipulated that any reduction in the Medicare budget should not increase any medical costs for Medicare participants.

In contrast, Barack Obama has a detailed plan to protect and strengthen Medicare and to provide access to more affordable prescription drugs. Here are the specifics:

• Obama proposes that the federal government obtain prescription drugs for seniors from pharmaceutical companies at wholesale prices which can then be distributed to older Americans at drastically reduced prices.

• Obama’s plan calls for seniors to be permitted to import safe prescription drugs from overseas and to make generic drugs more available.

• Obama wants to simplify Medicare’s prescription drug plans so that seniors can more easily decide which plan is right for them.

• Obama has pledged to provide funding for elder-care training programs for nurses and other healthcare providers.

• Obama has voiced a commitment to the long-term strength of the Medicare program so that seniors and those approaching their retirement years will not have to worry about the availability of quality healthcare.

• Obama has been a leading advocate of releasing government data that shows the nursing homes that provide the best care and those where seniors have been mistreated or those where the care has been substandard.

McCain’s opposition to Medicare offers Obama a compelling political weapon to appeal to senior voters nationwide. This is a group where to date Obama has not done well either in the Democratic primaries or in general election polls.

On the Medicare issue, all eyes should look to Florida. McCain’s steady 22-year record of opposition to Medicare should be a critical issue in deciding the vote of the large number of senior citizens in that state. There are nearly 3 million senior citizens in Florida and there they make up 17 percent of the electorate, the highest percentage of any state in the nation. Even a small shift in the large senior vote in Florida could shift the state’s huge bloc of 27 electoral votes to Obama.

In Florida, too, there are many millions of voters who are children of seniors who live in Florida and in other parts of the country. These Florida residents should be deeply concerned about the future of Medicare if John McCain is elected president.

The battleground state of Pennsylvania also has a very high percentage of senior citizens, about 15 percent of all eligible voters. There are 2.5 million senior citizens in Pennsylvania. An increased level of support for Obama among senior citizens in Pennsylvania could help Obama overcome his weakness among white working-class voters in the central and western parts of the state.

Obama can win a huge political advantage with senior citizen voters in states across the nation by exposing McCain’s damaging record on Medicare. It makes sense for Obama to deliver a major address on healthcare for senior citizens at a retirement community in Florida. In this address he would review McCain’s destructive record on Medicare and at the same time he would explain his own comprehensive plan to insure that senior citizens receive the best possible care at affordable prices.