Yesterday, audio broke in Heartland Signal of Republican Eric Hovde, who is running for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin, claiming that because elderly voters in nursing homes are at the end of their life, their votes should be considered suspicious.
“Well, if you’re in a nursing home, you only have a five, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote.”
While this video might already have over a million views and is making a splash in the Wisconsin Senate race, this isn’t the first time Eric Hovde has threatened to deny seniors’ access to what they are owed — namely, Medicare and Social Security.
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Hovde has said that Medicare and Social Security “absolutely positively needs to be reformed” and that by reform, he means he “absolutely” wants “to trim the benefits.”
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Hovde supported a means test for Social Security benefits and raising the retirement age, justifying his plan to force seniors to work for longer by blaming people for longer lives: “Today the average life expectancy is 78, 78 or 79. It’s a little higher for women, a little lower for men. And yet we still have the 65 retirement age.” He’s said older folks will just have to “all make sacrifices.”
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Hovde supported Paul Ryan’s voucher plan which would have turned Medicare into a voucher program and raised the age of eligibility. He ran an ad praising the program, called it “bold and courageous,” and steadfastly ignored the plan’s devastating potential impacts on Wisconsin seniors. In 2021, over 1.2 million Wisconsinites were enrolled in Medicare.
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That’s not all — Hovde said Ryan’s draconian plan didn’t go far enough and that the cuts to social services were “probably not big enough.”
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And in 2023, he criticized President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which allowed Medicare to negotiate with drug manufactures and capped drug costs — a thing Hovde himself said he wanted to do.
“Seniors in Wisconsin and across America cannot trust Eric Hovde. He doesn’t believe seniors have the mental acuity to vote, and he also wants to slash Medicare and Social Security, raise the retirement rate, and make cuts across the board to these critical programs. You can’t insult older Wisconsinites and expect to win — but what else would we expect from a guy from California who doesn’t know the state?” said Alexandra De Luca, vice president of communications for American Bridge 21st Century.
Published: Apr 9, 2024 | Last Modified: Apr 15, 2024