Cornyn Hopes We Aren't Paying Attention

For immediate release:

Contact: Martine Apodaca (713) 621-7425
Holly Shulman (713) 857-9637
September 4, 2008

Senator Cornyn's Washington doublespeak isn't making health care more affordable for Texas families or ensuring coverage for one additional Texas child, said the Noriega campaign today

Texas families know a simple truth: they are worse off today than they were six years ago when John Cornyn went to Congress – and nowhere is this more evident than with health care. Health costs continue to skyrocket and Texas remains the state with the highest percentage of uninsured. Despite these problems, John Cornyn has consistently cozied up to the special interests and taken every opportunity to sell out Texas families.

John Cornyn's answer to the health care crisis: raise your taxes by catering to the big insurance companies, block attempts at providing more children with health care, and distract voters from his record with false claims and pie in the sky statements.

Days after saying that Texas's health care crisis should be a "model for the nation," the Cornyn campaign continues to maintain the deception by saying that the McCain health plan that he endorsed isn't a tax increase on middle class Texans. It's too bad the McCain campaign has already said that it is.

Vice President Cheney once said "Facts are stubborn things."

And when the facts don't fit Cornyn's special interest needs, he is not afraid to make his own or ignore the ones he doesn't like.

The Cornyn camp has not denied that the radical health plan proposed by John McCain, which Cornyn endorsed, would represent an enormous new ‘health tax' on middle class Texans and force them to fend for themselves in the individual insurance market.

The Cornyn campaign has not denied that the plan will increase costs for consumers.

Even the McCain campaign has acknowledged that their plan is a tax increase and will make health care more, not less expensive:

McCain Campaign Acknowledged Health Care Plan A Tax Increase. According to the New York Times, the McCain campaign has already said that their plan is a tax increase. "Though Senator John McCain has promised to not raise taxes, his campaign acknowledged Wednesday that the health plan he outlined this week would have the effect of increasing tax payments for some workers." [New York Times, 5/01/08]

McCain's Chief Economic Advisor Acknowledged That Workers Would Pay More For Health Care. The McCain Plan Is A Tax Increase. The New York Times reported that the proposal's tax credits won't be large enough to make health insurance affordable. "The campaign cannot yet project how many taxpayers might see their taxes go up, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain's top domestic policy adviser. But Mr. Holtz-Eakin said in an interview that for some, Mr. McCain's health care tax credits would not be large enough to compensate for his proposal to eliminate the tax breaks afforded to workers with employer-provided health benefits." [New York Times, 5/01/08]

Anyway You Cut It, It's A Tax Increase. "Anyway you cut it, if you make health benefits subject to taxation, that's a tax increase," said Jonathan B. Oberlander, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill." [New York Times, 5/01/08]

"Texas families are worse off today than they were six years ago when John Cornyn went to Washington. Sadly, he truly went Washington and is now so out of touch with the realities Texans face everyday that he supports raising taxes on health insurance and leaving individuals to fend for themselves," said Martine Apodaca, spokesman for the Noriega for Senate campaign. "This is just the latest in a series of bizarre out of touch statements from John Cornyn on health care."

Just last month Cornyn said that Texas, despite having the highest uninsured rate in the country, should serve as a national health care model. If an outrageous number of uninsured is the measurement of success to John Cornyn then it makes sense that he would support a tax increase on working families – an increase which is projected to increase the number of uninsured from 45.7 to 55 million by 2013.

Now Senator Cornyn says he is "intent on expanding the number of people who benefit from quality health insurance."

"What a Washington politican!" said Apodaca. "Talk about being against something before he was for it. Only a creature of the special interests would say he wanted to expand health coverage despite voting six times against expanding children's health insurance and endorsing a radical health plan that all but guarantees middle class Texans will lose their coverage. Cornyn's had six years to do something about this problem. The results? It's gotten worse."

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