Over the course of his Senate career John McCain has voted at least seven times against funding of treatment, prevention, or research on AIDS.
Since Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first identified over 30 years ago more than 1 million Americans have been diagnosed with the disease. More than 565,000 Americans have died of AIDS.
AIDS is no longer an issue of sole concern to gays, lesbians, or low-income blacks. Recent years have seen a surge in AIDS rates among whites, Hispanics, women, as well as heterosexuals.
AIDS imposes a huge economic burden on all voters. There are about 450,000 Americans currently living with AIDS. Government estimates put the medical costs per AIDS patients at about $25,000 per year. This puts the annual total cost for AIDS care at more than $11 billion.
McCain’s voting record on AIDS has a special urgency in the state of Florida where AIDS has become a major public health problem. South Florida has the highest rate of new AIDS cases in the nation. (Click Here to Read More)
Over the past decade John McCain has voted not less than 20 times against legislation that would lower or moderate the price of prescription drugs for the nation’s senior citizens.
In the most insensitive vote of his career, McCain voted in 2003 against a proposal that would have included all cancer patients under Medicare’s prescription drug plan.
Over his 22-year career in the Senate, John McCain has consistently voted to protect the profits of drug companies at the expense of senior citizens.
All eyes should be directed toward Florida as the state where McCain’s callous policies should draw millions of voters to Obama.
There are 3 million senior citizens in the state of Florida. OEW calculates that if John McCain had his way and the Prescription Drug and Medicare Improvement Act had not been enacted, Florida seniors today would be paying an additional $4 billion each year out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. (Click Here to Read More)
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. (Click Here to Read More)
This week’s identification of a near epidemic is a perfect opening for Obama to establish his strategies for combating AIDS in Hispanic communities.
AIDS is reaching epidemic proportions among Latinos in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one quarter of all new AIDS cases are Latinos. In major inner-city areas, often 25 percent of Latino men are infected with the virus.
This frightening new data on AIDS will raise grave concerns within Latino communities throughout the United States. Obama must promptly tell the public why he would be a far stronger advocate to combat AIDS than would John McCain. It now may be necessary for Obama to address the issue on national television.
Obama’s healthcare reform measures have consistently promised support to patients who suffer from AIDS. Obama has already declared that if elected president, he will lead the fight against AIDS not only in the United States but throughout the world. Obama’s words: “We are all sick because of AIDS.” (Click Here to Read More)
The Bush administration has just proposed a regulation that would allow healthcare providers at their discretion to refuse to provide women with certain types of contraception. This includes emergency contraception, or what is sometimes referred to as the “Morning After” pill, which is almost always administered to women after they have been raped.
Under the proposed regulation, hospitals and state regulators could not force physicians to prescribe or even to tell women of their options concerning certain pharmaceuticals or procedures when the physicians themselves object on moral grounds.
The question is, where does John McCain stand on this critical health issue? (Click Here to Read More)
Yesterday, John McCain was the only United States senator absent when the Senate voted to invoke closure on a Republican filibuster of legislation that seeks to block a 10.6 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements to physicians. This was an important vote which no senator ducked other than McCain.
OEW has consistently reminded readers how John McCain always manages to be away from the Senate when he is confronted with a vote that may force him to show his true political colors. As of the end of June, McCain had missed 367 votes (61 percent of all votes) since the beginning of 2007. He had the worst record in the U.S. Senate. It is true that McCain has been on the campaign trail for most of this period. But Barack Obama only missed 259 votes during the period. And, most important, he showed for yesterday’s closure vote.
McCain could have cleared his schedule for this critical vote. Every other senator found it possible to be present. Senator McCain’s absence from the Senate did not show well when Senator Ted Kennedy, who recently underwent surgery for a brain tumor, overruled his doctors and returned to Washington to cast his vote.
McCain’s absence yesterday is not the first time he has missed important votes to enable him to straddle the political fence. (Click Here to Read More)
