Medicaid or corporate giveaways? Eric Cantor makes his choice clear

What matters more to you - helping seniors and people with disabilities afford the health care they need OR making sure that pharmaceutical companies get corporate giveaways?

For most Americans, the choice would be obvious. Some Republican leaders, however, would prefer that billions are cut from vital health services to the needy, while major corporations get tax breaks and giveaways.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, for example, rejected a simple spending fix that would save the federal government $112 billion.

Let me explain: Currently, people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid receive their prescription drugs through Medicare instead of Medicaid. But, the federal government is able to provide prescription drug coverage through Medicaid at a much lower rate. So, by simply providing drug coverage through Medicaid, instead of Medicare, seniors would receive the SAME prescription drug benefit, but at a savings of $112 billion!

Representative Cantor has rejected this simple fix proposed by the Obama administration and is instead supporting billions in draconian cuts to Medicaid. He would rather save major corporations money than save health care for millions of the nation's seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families.

While virtually no one is blind to the reality that the deficit needs to be addressed, it must be done properly. Cutting Medicaid will not only hurt the program's beneficiaries, but it will hurt the economy.

Republicans claim to want to cut government spending and favor a balanced budget, but they are rejecting a proposal to save $112 billion in government spending. It makes absolutely no sense - until, that is, you learn that the drug industry donated $168,000 to Cantor's reelection campaign last year. Cantor and other Republicans have been fighting against cuts to government spending that would lower profits for major corporations, such as pharmaceutical companies, while accepting money from them.

These ideologues need to get their priorities straight. Instead of favoring major corporations who are throwing money at them, they should think of the constituents they have been elected to serve - real people who need help paying excessive medical bills associated with old age and intense disability. I don't know about Eric Cantor, but most Americans I know would prefer that their grandparents continue to receive long-term care with the help of Medicaid over helping the richest corporations get even richer.

I suspect that if grandparents across the country donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Cantor's campaign, he would be fighting for their rights instead. But he and many other Republican leaders are hypocritically protecting payments to corporations while attempting to slash funds to entitlement programs in the name of "fiscal responsibility." This is unfair, absurd, and needs to stop. Let's just hope that Cantor and his fellow Republican leaders can get their priorities in order soon enough to save Medicaid and the health of millions.