Politico today reported that at an August 2 town hall in Pembroke, Don Bolduc promised to end Medicare as we know it — making clear that he would take away Medicare from the 307,000 Granite Staters currently enrolled in the program. The comments are just the latest evidence that Bolduc supports decimating Medicare. Bolduc has previously called for a $1 trillion cut to the program and has also said that he supports ending Social Security.
“Don Bolduc is so extreme that he would end Medicare as we know it and take away care from hundreds of thousands of Granite State seniors,” said Senator Maggie Hassan. “While I have a record of fighting to lower costs for seniors, Don Bolduc has actually said that he would end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. New Hampshire seniors have spent their lives paying into Social Security and Medicare, and Don Bolduc would create immeasurable harm by taking away these critical programs.”
Politico: The third rail Republicans can’t stop touching
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The latest is Don Bolduc, New Hampshire’s GOP Senate nominee, who advocated privatizing Medicare during a campaign town hall in early August, according to a recording of the event obtained by POLITICO.
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Bolduc’s comments came in response to a woman who said she was a nurse and complained about Medicare and Medicaid, arguing they were worsening outcomes for elderly patients and hamstringing medical professionals. Bolduc volunteered that he frequently speaks about how major reform is necessary for the government-sponsored health insurance programs for seniors and people with low incomes.
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“The privatization is hugely important,” the retired army general told the audience in the town of Pembroke on Aug. 2. “Getting government out of it, getting government money with strings attached out of it.”
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Privatizing government entitlement programs has long been a policy goal for some segments of the Republican Party who worry about the federal deficit and the growing share of the federal budget those programs take up.
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Bolduc isn’t the only Republican to take aim at the popular programs in recent months; GOP Senate nominees in some of the country’s most competitive races this year have also faced scrutiny over their current or past support for privatizing the programs, in some cases forcing them to recant.
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Elderly voters — many on fixed incomes and relying on government benefits — are a key voting bloc. New Hampshire’s 307,000 Medicare recipients made up roughly one-quarter of the state’s population in 2020, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, while Social Security recipients totaled 321,000 in the state as of last year.