Bolanos Blasts Bonilla For Lack Of Compassion, Medicaid Cuts

[A Press Release from the Rick Bolanos for Congress Campaign (D.) TX-CD-23]

On Wednesday, the 19th of April, Rick Bolanos, the democratic candidate for the 23rd congressional district, in front of more than a hundred supporters, lambasted Henry Bonilla for his lack of compassion and his continuous votes against health care and continued support of cutting Medicaid benefits for the elderly and others in need. “At a time when more than 46 million Americans are without health insurance we should not be cutting Medicaid benefits” stated Bolanos vehemently.

Bolanos pointed out that “Bonilla has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign coffer from the HMO’s, drug companies and the insurance industry, and has continuously voted on the side of those corporations without as much as a small semblance of compassion for our Americans who struggling to pay what has now become an average of $9000.00 a year for health care.” Bolanos went on to say that “HMOs, drug companies, and the insurance industry are the only ones winning in today’s health care battle.”

Bolanos also pointed out that it was a “reprehensible moral travesty” that more drugs are manufactured in the United States than any other nation yet we pay more for prescription drugs than most of the world. Bolanos cited a study that shows that US drug prices are 45% higher than in Canada where a huge quantity of our drugs is exported.  He went on to say that Bonilla, who has fattened his more than two million dollar war chest with money from the drug companies, recently voted against permitting Americans from buying their drugs from Canada and bringing them back into the United States, thus giving a free reign for the drug manufacturers, who are already enjoying some of the largest profits in their history, to gouge the American public.

Bolanos blasted Bonilla for continuously voting without regard for his constituents and stated that in fact Bonilla has prostituted his vote to satisfy the greed of the corporate donors that have filled his campaign chest to overflowing. Bolanos pointed out that Bonilla voted against negotiating the lowest possible drug prices for Medicare which would have benefited millions of elderly, middle income, and poor Americans. In effect he voted for prohibiting the federal government from negotiating lower prices that would have made health care costs more affordable to the average American.”

Bolanos, who was visibly incensed, went on to say that since the year 2000, the average cost of health care insurance premiums has increased by more than 40% almost double the prices that were available to the public six years ago.

Bolanos cited a study from an organization called Campaign for America’s Future, where they stated that with health care costs skyrocketing, more and more Americans have found it impossible to maintain health care coverage. For families, the ability to maintain coverage is increasingly out of reach. The result: long periods without insurance, emptied bank accounts and rising debt.

Bolanos said that it is “imperative that we guarantee accessible, affordable, high-quality, continuous health care for all Americans. We must not permit the huge HMOs, insurance and drug companies to continue resisting and putting their own profit driven agenda ahead of America’s needs. We cannot permit congressional representatives to sell their votes to the highest campaign donors and in effect turn their backs on the desperate needs of our nation’s citizens. We are in a crisis that must be solved immediately with the utmost haste. It is a crisis that is threatening the very well being of our nation.”