Fails to make health care affordable
for women and their families. More than 20 million women do
not have health insurance, and millions more can barely afford to pay their
premiums. Yet the President's plan to expand Health Savings Accounts would
undermine employer-based health care coverage and make most Americans worse
off. Expanding HSAs gives employers an enormous incentive to drop or reduce the
health benefits that they provide now - thereby undermining employer-based
health care coverage. For women, who typically need and use more health care than
men, HSAs can lead to high out-of-pocket costs that will discourage necessary
health care use.
Slashes Medicare by $36 billion
over five years and $105 billion over 10 years. The
GOP budget-cutting bill (S. 1932) that the President just signed into law
includes cuts in Medicare payments to health care providers of $22 billion over
10 years. Now, the Bush budget is calling for extensive new cuts in Medicare
payments to providers - slashing Medicare by $36 billion over five years and
$105 billion over 10 years. This drastic cut in Medicare would have a
particularly damaging impact on women, as women account for over 56 percent of
adult Medicare beneficiaries.
Includes gross Medicaid cuts,
including both legislative and regulatory cuts, of $17 billion over five years
and $42 billion over 10 years. The Bush budget is calling for
$42 billion in additional Medicaid cuts, on top of the deep Medicaid cuts that
Congress enacted in 2005. Medicaid beneficiaries, the majority of whom are
women and girls, will be adversely affected by these additional Medicaid cuts.
Medicaid cuts of this magnitude cannot be found by simply closing loopholes -
the pain will be felt somewhere, either by shifting costs to the states or
making women and their families pay even more for their care, or cutting
payments to providers that can undermine their ability to provide care to the
uninsured.
Cuts funding for food stamps and
eliminates nutritional food program for women and their families.
Single mothers and their children and elderly women living alone
disproportionately rely on federal nutrition assistance - nearly 70 percent of
adult food stamp recipients are women. Yet changes to eligibility in the food
stamp program could cause 300,000 Americans to lose their food stamp benefits.
In addition, the President's budget eliminates the Commodity Supplemental Food
Program, which provides nutritious food packages to low-income seniors and
pregnant women, infants and children. These cuts to food assistance programs
will leave many of the country's most vulnerable groups without the resources
to meet the basic needs of their families.
Eliminates Social Security survivor
benefits for women and children. Social Security helps the
millions of families of workers who suffer an early death by providing monthly
survivor benefits to widows and orphans. Survivor benefits are particularly
vital to women who are far more likely than men to receive Social Security
benefits if their spouse dies or becomes disabled before retirement. The
President's budget cuts $6.3 billion in Social Security benefits over ten years
by eliminating this critical safety net for women and children.
Eliminates funding for programs that
increase women's opportunities in non-traditional employment.
Under the President's budget, the Women in Apprenticeships and Nontraditional
Occupations Act (WANTO) is eliminated. The WANTO program awards grants to
employers to help them recruit, train, and retain women in non-traditional
high-wage jobs. Women who have access to WANTO-funded projects are 47 percent
more likely to enter a higher-paying technical occupation.
Eliminates the Women's Educational
Equity Act (WEEA). The Bush budget completely eliminates
WEEA, an initiative that has funded hundreds of programs to expose girls to
careers from which they have traditionally been excluded; develop teaching
strategies for math and science; and clarify school obligations with regard to
sexual harassment.
Freezes the maximum Pell Grant for
the fifth year in a row. Women at all levels of education
still face significant disadvantages in financing a college education and
disproportionately rely on Pell Grants. Despite these challenges, the
Administration refuses to increase the size of the maximum Pell Grant, making these
disadvantages harder to overcome.
Freezes funding for Head Start.
Access to early childhood education is vital to women's economic well-being and
the ability of their children to succeed in school. Yet once again, the Bush
budget freezes Head Start funding at this year's level, meaning that 19,000
children will have to be cut from Head Start next year.
Eliminates funding for Even Start. The
Bush budget completely eliminates Even Start, a program that supports family
literacy services for parents with low literacy skills or who have limited
English proficiency and their children -- by helping parents improve their
literacy and basic educational skills.
Slashes funding for the Community
Development Block Grant (CDBG). The Bush budget makes
significant cuts in the Community Development Block Grant, a program that helps
women, especially single mothers and elderly women, find shelter in a difficult
housing market. The CDBG program plays a critical role in providing housing to
our country's most vulnerable, including victims of domestic violence and
Hurricane Katrina survivors.
Increases child care waiting lists by
hundreds of thousands. The Child Care and Development Block
Grant program provides child care assistance for low-income families and early
education services to our country's most disadvantaged children. The
President's budget freezes funding for this program for the fifth consecutive
year and cuts child care assistance by 400,000 children by 2011.
Cuts overall funding for Violence
Against Women Act (VAWA) programs. When all Violence Against
Women programs are taken into account, the budget cuts funding by $19.5 million
- cutting programs aimed at preventing domestic violence and providing
essential services to victims of domestic violence.
Call or write at:
HILL COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
64 W. Elm
Hillsboro, Texas 76645
(254) 582-7337