SEIU New Ad Campaign Targets Medicare Preservation
September 27, 2012
By Stephanie West
With recent polling showing voters trusting President Obama and congressional Democrats to protect and strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, the Service Employees International Union has launched a $600,000 ad campaign in critical battleground state races to support candidates who will stand with working people and oppose cuts to these critical programs.
“We need leaders who will make investments in vital services like Medicare and Medicaid, not pushing plans that balance the budget on the backs of seniors and the middle class,” said SEIU Political Director Brandon Davis. “At a time when America’s workers are moving forward and trying to build their retirement savings lost during a recession caused by Wall Street’s excesses, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans support legislation that would leave Americans facing increased costs, decreased coverage, or loss of coverage altogether.”
In a new radio ad in Florida, a senior citizen asks her adult son to help explain where Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s really stand on Medicare and what
their plans mean for the future. The ad, which details some of the devastating impacts of the extreme Romney-Ryan plan, directs listeners to learn the truth for themselves at http://www.medicareromneyryan.com/ and is the second radio ad of an extended radio campaign targeting Florida seniors that began with the Republican National Convention in Tampa.
In Michigan’s First Congressional District, SEIU’s new TV ad in the Traverse City-Cadillac and Marquette media markets highlight Republican Congressman Dan Benishek’s vote to end Medicare as we know it by supporting the extremist budget proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan. The bill would have cost seniors $6,400 more per year while protecting tax breaks for millionaires.
SEIU’s TV ad in the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News media market discusses Second District Republican Congressman Scott Rigell’s votes for Congressman Paul Ryan’s extremist budget and vote to raise the retirement age for Social Security to 70. Rigell also opposes helping seniors close the “donut hole” in their prescription drug coverage under Medicare while cutting Medicaid funding in half, endangering long-term care coverage for seniors and those with disabilities.
