Alan Grayson Says:

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Alan Grayson explained the Ryan Plan to end Medicare. The MSNBC host, Cenk Uygur, asked Grayson why every Republican Presidential candidate has lined up in favor of the Ryan Plan.

This is what Grayson said:

AG: “Listen, only 4 percent of all Americans ever vote in a Republican primary. That’s 4 percent. The other 96 percent are the normal Americans. The 4 percent are people who must never get sick, because they don't want to have Medicare. Now think about that. Every other industrialized country in the entire world not only provides health care for its seniors, but health care for everyone. And the Republican right wing is trying to tell us that somehow we can't afford health care for our seniors. We’ve got 40,000 Americans under the age of 65 who die every year, because they can't afford to see a doctor when they're sick. And now they want to extend that [tragedy] to the most infirmed, most victimized, sickest part of the population, our senior citizens, so that more will die. I honestly believe that if Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck announced one day that they were in favor of the Black Death, you’d see every Republican primary candidate for President go along with it.

CU: (Laughter). You know, it depends. If Obama said, “Hey I’d like to cure the Black Death,” they’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know, the Black Death sounds pretty good.” So, now look, I think they’ve done tremendous damage to themselves. The polls are 70 percent and higher. They’re on your side, Congressman Grayson. They say, “We don’t want you to touch our Medicare.” So what are they doing here? Do they have a plan? You know, is Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, are they doing some sort of strategy that we can't understand? Or are they just plain stupid?

AG: They are tools. It’s that simple. They are tools. You know, George Carlin said it back in 2005, they have made us ignorant, these people who own the country. They have made us ignorant and they have made us poor. And now the next thing they want to do is to take away our Medicare and our Social Security. He said that in 2005, and it's taken six year to make it obvious that that’s true. And God bless them, these Republicans like Ryan, you know, they may be cruel, they may be heartless, but at least they're honest. They’ve told us exactly what they want to do with the power that they have accumulated. They want to take away Social Security and Medicare from our senior citizens.

CU: You know, I think you nailed it. I think what it is, is corporations that have, you know, run amuck. It’s out-of-control greed. Whether it's the banks with all the risks that they're taking, it’s gonna crash our economy again. Whether it's the oil companies at the height of being the most profitable companies in the world, they still want to take billions in subsidies from the American taxpayers. And whether it's these guys trying to cut your Medicare so they can cut taxes for the rich. I think they got the note from the, you know, the richest people in the country, from the corporations who said: “Hit the gas pedal. We don't give a damn. We're going to out-raise these guys. We're gonna get more money, and this is the time to put ‘em away. Just tell ‘em what you’re going to do. It doesn't matter; we're just going to outspend them during the elections.” I think that's what's happening. Now the problem is they are going to outspend the Democrats in elections, so how do you deal with that problem?

AG: Well, it's apparent now that what these owners want is nothing from the rest of us except for cheap labor. And that makes the senior citizens particularly vulnerable to their plans, because the senior citizens don't work. So from the perspective of the owners of this country, they're useless. Their time in the economy is over and therefore they serve no purpose. But senior citizens still do vote and they voted in huge numbers in the last election, because the Republicans lied to them, and they told them that the Democrats wanted to take away their Medicare. Now they see that the Democrats are the only ones protecting their Medicare, and Republicans are out to destroy it. There’s a reason why we call Medicare “an entitlement.” It’s because you're entitled to it. It’s not Medicare any more if you are not entitled to it any more. They want to take away the privilege of Medicare. They want to take away the right to Medicare, and replace it with a piece of paper they know will not be enough to cover the costs of care. And that’s how malevolent they really are. So I will say to senior citizens of this country: “Now you see the truth. You see their true colors. And the only thing you can do about it is turn out and vote for the only people in this country who are actually trying to protect you and your interests: the Democratic Party.”

Medicare for All.