Older Americans deserve freedom from fear of poverty and from unmanageable medical expenses. The American people have earned the right to a decent income and affordable high quality health care through their many years of contributions to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.
Before Congress enacted Social Security and Medicare, most senior citizens in our country lived in poverty. Social Security and Medicare have been tremendously successful in lifting tens of millions of older Americans out of poverty and treating their health problems. Today, a third of all older Americans live on their Social Security benefits, and more than half of all older Americans rely on Social Security benefits for most of their income.
I am steadfastly committed to preserving Social Security and Medicare in their current forms and ensuring the solvency of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. Throughout my service in Congress, one of my highest priorities has been ensuring that senior citizens are guaranteed affordable high quality health care and a decent minimum standard of living.
Social Security
I have worked hard to protect Social Security benefits for current and future generations.
Some Republicans have raised the idea of reducing guaranteed Social Security benefits for future generations and creating risky private accounts where individuals’ retirement savings would be gambled on Wall Street investments. I have opposed such proposals in the past, and I will oppose them whenever anyone proposes them.
I opposed Republican efforts in 2005 to privatize Social Security and to reduce future guaranteed benefits for all Social Security beneficiaries. I’m pleased to note that Democrats in Congress were successful in opposing President Bush’s radical plan to privatize Social Security.
Thanks to Republican scare tactics, most people don’t realize that the Social Security Trust fund can be made solvent for future generations with modest minor adjustments. For example, lifting the cap on payroll taxes so that millionaires pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as minimum wage workers do would eliminate 95 percent of the Social Security Trust Fund’s unfunded liabilities. That’s just one of many ways we could eliminate the shortfall in the Social Security Trust Fund. Major benefit cuts aren’t necessary to make Social Security Solvent in perpetuity, and adamantly oppose Social Security benefit cuts.
Medicare
I have strongly supported the Medicare program in its original form throughout my service in Congress, and I will continue to do so. I also support Medicare Advantage programs that are able to provide all of Medicare’s guaranteed benefits as well as additional health and wellness benefits paid for with savings that private insurers have achieved by increased efficiencies.
Republicans in Congress have proposed phasing out the original Medicare program as we know it today and replacing it for future generations with a voucher program in which seniors would be given a voucher and left to shop for health insurance from private insurance companies. To add insult to injury, the value of these vouchers is expected to drop in the face of increasing health care costs – eventually shifting most of the cost of older Americans’ health care from the government to individuals. I find this abandonment of future generations completely outrageous and irresponsible. I will do every possible thing I can to oppose any such a proposal.
In marked contrast, I recently supported legislation too eliminate the Medicare Part D “donut hole,” create new benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, eliminate patient co-pays for others, and significantly strengthen the Medicare Trust Fund (by eliminating outrageous wasteful giveaways to private insurance companies that the Republican-controlled Congress enacted in 2003).
I promise both senior citizens and younger Americans that I will work to preserve Medicare in its original form for current and future generations – and that I will work hard to ensure that all Americans, regardless of age, are guaranteed affordable high quality health care.
I strongly believe that senior citizens (and for that matter, all Americans) should have the right to choose their own doctors. I have consistently supported legislation to guarantee seniors the right to choose their own doctors. But that right will mean a lot less if the doctors seniors wish to see drop out of the Medicare program because the amount Medicare pays them doesn’t fairly compensate them for their service. Consequently, I have consistently supported Congressional efforts to enact a permanent “doc fix” – legislation to fix the formula used to determine how much doctors will be paid for the health care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries – and I will continue to do so. I have also supported legislation to increase the number of doctors and other health care providers serving seniors and medically underserved communities like inner-city neighborhoods.
Waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and other government health care programs raise health care costs for seniors and damage the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund. Consequently, as a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I have been actively involved in Congressional efforts to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. For example, Congress recently enacted legislation I helped draft that contained over 30 new measures to help federal investigators find and crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. I am wholeheartedly committed to continuing to develop effective ways to combat waste fraud and abuse in these important health care programs.
Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments
While the measure of inflation (the CPI-E) the government uses to calculate Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) didn’t rise enough to authorize a COLA for 2010 or 2011, I am well aware that the cost of living for older Americans has risen significantly. Consequently, I believe the federal government should act to help senior citizens struggling to get by on fixed incomes to deal with the rising cost of health care and other goods and services.
I have consistently supported efforts to help older Americans who have been hard-hit by the current economic downturn like, for example, giving several $250 payments to Social Security beneficiaries. These payments can’t begin to offset the economic losses many of our senior citizens have suffered, but they can help make up for the unprecedented denial of Social Security Cost of Living Adjustments in two subsequent years..
I also believe that Congress needs to re-examine the way it measures the cost of living for seniors to determine whether changes should be made to more accurately reflect those costs and assure that Social Security beneficiaries receive fairer cost of living adjustments in the future.
