SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
'During the election Donald J. Trump promised he would not cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security,' says one of the groups behind the ad. 'Now he is working with Paul Ryan and the Republicans to cut $800 billion dollars from Medicaid. We must stop these cuts. Save Granny!' (Image: Screenshot/Facebook)
She's Baaack... To Confront Trumpcare Hypocrisy, 'Granny Off the Cliff' Returns
'This new video rips apart their health care plan and makes brutally clear just how damaging Medicaid cuts will be for America's seniors.'
Jun 26, 2017
With just days for Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass their Trumpcare bill before a congressional recess that begins at the end of this week, an updated version of an iconic ad is back on Monday featuring an elderly woman being foisted from her wheelchair over the edge of a cliff.
Taking direct aim at the hypocrisy of President Donald Trump's support for the bill--which he characterizes as "mean" but also enthusiastically supports--the new ad pairs earlier footage of candidate Trump castigating Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for his previous attempts to gut healthcare protections for the nation's sick and elderly with clips of the president celebrating Ryan last month when the House pushed through their version of Trumpcare that did exactly that.
Watch the ad:
"Bringing back our massively impactful 'Granny Off the Cliff' ad, which Paul Ryan himself credited for sinking his 2011 budget proposal targeting Medicare, this new video rips apart their health care plan and makes brutally clear just how damaging Medicaid cuts will be for America's seniors," said the Agenda Project Action Fund, which co-produced the ad, in a statement.
According to the group, the Senate version of Republican approach would devastate the healthcare of seniors in numerous and specific ways:
- Medicaid, which is being cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, covers the long-term care costs of two-thirds of Americans living in nursing homes. Without Medicaid, these seniors will have no other way to pay for long-term care.
- Repealing the Obamacare payroll tax weakens the Medicare Trust Fund, endangering the long-term health of the program and leaving the door open for future benefit cuts to Medicare recipients.
- The bill's elimination of essential health benefits means insurance companies can offer insurance that doesn't even cover prescription drugs, among other important services.
- 25 million people age 50-64 have a preexisting condition. This bill allows insurers to charge them significantly more, even to levels where health care becomes unaffordable.
- Insurance companies will be able to charge older customers 5 times as much as younger ones, compared to 3 times as much under Obamacare rules, leading to an estimated 22% increase in premium costs for elderly Americans.
The 'Lady Off the Cliff' has worked in the past, the group said, but the battle this week to defeat Trumpcare in the Senate "might be her most important fight" yet.
Along with their partners and allies at SaveGranny.org, the Agenda Project is urging people to mobilize against the Senate bill by calling their lawmakers this week. This, said the group, "is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. For the sake of Granny and millions of others who will be hurt if this bill passes, please take a moment to share this video, and call your Senators at 202-224-3121."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
With just days for Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass their Trumpcare bill before a congressional recess that begins at the end of this week, an updated version of an iconic ad is back on Monday featuring an elderly woman being foisted from her wheelchair over the edge of a cliff.
Taking direct aim at the hypocrisy of President Donald Trump's support for the bill--which he characterizes as "mean" but also enthusiastically supports--the new ad pairs earlier footage of candidate Trump castigating Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for his previous attempts to gut healthcare protections for the nation's sick and elderly with clips of the president celebrating Ryan last month when the House pushed through their version of Trumpcare that did exactly that.
Watch the ad:
"Bringing back our massively impactful 'Granny Off the Cliff' ad, which Paul Ryan himself credited for sinking his 2011 budget proposal targeting Medicare, this new video rips apart their health care plan and makes brutally clear just how damaging Medicaid cuts will be for America's seniors," said the Agenda Project Action Fund, which co-produced the ad, in a statement.
According to the group, the Senate version of Republican approach would devastate the healthcare of seniors in numerous and specific ways:
- Medicaid, which is being cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, covers the long-term care costs of two-thirds of Americans living in nursing homes. Without Medicaid, these seniors will have no other way to pay for long-term care.
- Repealing the Obamacare payroll tax weakens the Medicare Trust Fund, endangering the long-term health of the program and leaving the door open for future benefit cuts to Medicare recipients.
- The bill's elimination of essential health benefits means insurance companies can offer insurance that doesn't even cover prescription drugs, among other important services.
- 25 million people age 50-64 have a preexisting condition. This bill allows insurers to charge them significantly more, even to levels where health care becomes unaffordable.
- Insurance companies will be able to charge older customers 5 times as much as younger ones, compared to 3 times as much under Obamacare rules, leading to an estimated 22% increase in premium costs for elderly Americans.
The 'Lady Off the Cliff' has worked in the past, the group said, but the battle this week to defeat Trumpcare in the Senate "might be her most important fight" yet.
Along with their partners and allies at SaveGranny.org, the Agenda Project is urging people to mobilize against the Senate bill by calling their lawmakers this week. This, said the group, "is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. For the sake of Granny and millions of others who will be hurt if this bill passes, please take a moment to share this video, and call your Senators at 202-224-3121."
With just days for Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass their Trumpcare bill before a congressional recess that begins at the end of this week, an updated version of an iconic ad is back on Monday featuring an elderly woman being foisted from her wheelchair over the edge of a cliff.
Taking direct aim at the hypocrisy of President Donald Trump's support for the bill--which he characterizes as "mean" but also enthusiastically supports--the new ad pairs earlier footage of candidate Trump castigating Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan for his previous attempts to gut healthcare protections for the nation's sick and elderly with clips of the president celebrating Ryan last month when the House pushed through their version of Trumpcare that did exactly that.
Watch the ad:
"Bringing back our massively impactful 'Granny Off the Cliff' ad, which Paul Ryan himself credited for sinking his 2011 budget proposal targeting Medicare, this new video rips apart their health care plan and makes brutally clear just how damaging Medicaid cuts will be for America's seniors," said the Agenda Project Action Fund, which co-produced the ad, in a statement.
According to the group, the Senate version of Republican approach would devastate the healthcare of seniors in numerous and specific ways:
- Medicaid, which is being cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, covers the long-term care costs of two-thirds of Americans living in nursing homes. Without Medicaid, these seniors will have no other way to pay for long-term care.
- Repealing the Obamacare payroll tax weakens the Medicare Trust Fund, endangering the long-term health of the program and leaving the door open for future benefit cuts to Medicare recipients.
- The bill's elimination of essential health benefits means insurance companies can offer insurance that doesn't even cover prescription drugs, among other important services.
- 25 million people age 50-64 have a preexisting condition. This bill allows insurers to charge them significantly more, even to levels where health care becomes unaffordable.
- Insurance companies will be able to charge older customers 5 times as much as younger ones, compared to 3 times as much under Obamacare rules, leading to an estimated 22% increase in premium costs for elderly Americans.
The 'Lady Off the Cliff' has worked in the past, the group said, but the battle this week to defeat Trumpcare in the Senate "might be her most important fight" yet.
Along with their partners and allies at SaveGranny.org, the Agenda Project is urging people to mobilize against the Senate bill by calling their lawmakers this week. This, said the group, "is an all-hands-on-deck emergency. For the sake of Granny and millions of others who will be hurt if this bill passes, please take a moment to share this video, and call your Senators at 202-224-3121."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.