For Immediate Release - NOVEMBER 18, 2011
Contact: Avram Goldstein 202-587-1634
agoldstein@healthcareforamericanow.org

Washington, DC - Health Care for America Now (HCAN), the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization, released the following statement from HCAN Executive Director Ethan Rome on the House vote scheduled for today on a "balanced budget" constitutional amendment proposal that would cripple the economy, put 15 million Americans out of work and doom Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security:

"Requiring a balanced budget every year without regard for the condition of the economy or important national needs would force deep cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and Medicare, and it would remake our country into a society where everyone is on their own.

"The Republican plan would put the gradual elimination of essential programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security into the Constitution. It would permanently protect millionaire tax breaks and corporate tax loopholes while destroying programs critical to middle class and low-income families. It would end the American Dream as we know it.

"Americans would earn less, the economy would shrink and access to decent health care would exist only for the wealthy. As one independent economic analysis found, the effect on the economy would be catastrophic.

"The Republican proposal not only discourages sound long-term investments in our future - it prohibits them. If the Republican proposal applied to household budgets, families would have to pay cash-in-full for their homes or their kid's college education instead of taking loans to fund the investment. The Republican proposal is designed for a 1% world, not for the rest of us.

"The balanced budget amendment may have an appealing title, but it masks what it would really do."

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Health Care for America Now is the nation's leading grassroots health care advocacy organization. HCAN led the fight over the past two years to win passage of health reform and to keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.