John Gard: Misleading Seniors

Rep. John Gard, candidate for the 8th Congressional District, is touting a new ad about seniors in this press release. He calls the ad "Standing Up for Seniors" and says the ad is about his role in creating SeniorCare, the Wisconsin program to help seniors with the cost of prescription drugs.

If it were up to John Gard and his Republican colleagues, SeniorCare would not have become a very good program and Gard's votes on seniors are nothing to brag about in an ad.

The SeniorCare that Gard and his colleagues envisioned would have left a widow making as little as $16,000 without any coverage at all. From the Capital Times June 22nd, 2001:

The plan, adopted in a GOP caucus, would cover an estimated 171,000 senior citizens. A Democratic plan, adopted by the Senate Tuesday, would cover an estimated 335,000 seniors. Income eligibility ceilings for the GOP plan are $15,448 for single people and $20,800 for couples.

The Senate Democrats forced the Assembly Republicans to increase those income limits in order to cover more people in the program and that is the program Gard is taking credit for in his ad. In the end he did vote for it, but he had to be dragged there kicking and screaming the whole way.

Gard also has votes regarding the SeniorCare program that didn't seem to make it into his ad. For example, he voted against eliminating the enrollment fee increase from $20 to $30 and increases to the deductible and copayment levels, which cost seniors in our state over $21 million (AA1 to SB 44, 6/19/03).

SeniorCare is not the only place where Gard voted against the interests of seniors either. He has voted against providing an additional $5.5 million to expand the Community Options Program to keep seniors in their homes rather being forced into nursing homes (AA88 to ASA1 to SB 55, 6/29/01) and voted against providing an additional $2 million to give meals to needy seniors (AA1 to ASA1 to AB 802, 3/15/00).

Since this ad falls to fully inform the voters, let's hope Gard at least informed the folks in this commercial what the filming was about.