At age 85, total out-of-pocket spending for women was estimated to be $7,555, compared with $5,835 for men.
Max Richtman via Huffington Post.
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This year marks the 50th anniversaries of Medicare and Medicaid and the 80th anniversary of Social Security. Fifty-seven percent of people on Medicare, 70 percent of adults on Medicaid and 56 percent of Social Security recipients (66 percent of those over 85) are women. Together, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid provide critical health and financial security.
via Huffington Post.
Related Reading:
- Women and Social Security.
- While Social Security is a program that is vitally important to all Americans, it is especially important to the financial security of women. There are a number of reasons why this is so. First of all, women live longer than men.
- Medicare and Women.
- Medicare, combined with Social Security, has improved the economic status of older Americans and younger people with disabilities. Prior to Medicare, one - half of older Americans were uninsured and one - third were living in poverty. Today, with access to health care coverage, the poverty rate for seniors is nine percent.
- Women and the Retirement Savings Gap.
- Older women have significantly lower retirement benefits than men.
Nope, I’m not kidding. We’ve seen a sharp slowdown in health care costs across the board over the last seven years. This has led the Congressional Budget Office to lower its deficit projections. In fact, the reductions in projected deficits due to this slowdown has been sharper than the reductions that we might have seen as a result of almost any politically plausible cut in benefits. But Robert Samuelson is not happy. He tells readers:
“No one truly grasps why Medicare spending has slowed so abruptly. A detailed CBO study threw cold water on many plausible explanations. What we don’t understand could easily reverse.”
While this has a clear meaning to policy wonks, it is likely that most viewers won’t immediately know that “entitlements” means the Social Security and Medicare their parents receive. It’s a lot easier for politicians to talk about cutting wasteful “entitlements” than taking away seniors’ Social Security and Medicare.
Dean Baker via Truth Out.
Related Reading:
Will America’s Seniors Vote Against Their Own Self-Interests…Again?
Lumping Social Security and Medicare together and calling them ‘entitlements’ is also telling. These are earned benefits, not entitlements, which American workers have contributed to throughout their working lives. Conservatives have long used the word 'entitlements’ to make those earned benefits seem like welfare.
via Entitled to Know.
Tens of millions of Social Security beneficiaries will not get a raise in 2016, the government announced on Thursday…
…Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the lack of COLA will be especially harmful, because it is coupled with an increase in Medicare Part B premiums for some seniors. Those premiums are automatically deducted from seniors’ Social Security checks.
“If accurate inflation protection for seniors is truly our goal, Congress needs to adopt a fully developed CPI for the elderly,” Richtman said in a statement. “Until then, we urge Congress to act quickly to mitigate the devastating Medicare hikes headed for millions of Americans who can’t afford them.”
via Huffington Post.
Related Reading:
Today’s announcement that there will be no Social Security
cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase next year, for only the third
time in 40 years, means that millions of seniors who rely on their
Social Security to get by will once again find their expenses outpacing
their Social Security benefit.
The establishment is trying to pull a big one over on the public yet again. One of the designated topics for the last presidential debate goes under the heading, “debt and entitlements.” This should have people upset for several reasons.
via Truth Out.
Related Reading:
- How to Talk About Social Security (& Medicare) Without Really Talking About It.
- Framing benefits cuts as a way to “save”
Social Security and Medicare while reducing the debt has long been the
poll-tested language used to sell the American people on middle-class
benefit cuts to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
I was thrilled to join Congressman Paul Tonko, Max Richtman, President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Nashua Community College President Lucille Jordan, and other friends and colleagues today in launching Eleanor’s Hope in New Hampshire. This initiative, led by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, is central to building awareness and support for women’s economic security in retirement. via Rep. Annie Kuster.
Unfortunately, seniors will still receive no cost of living adjustment in 2016 and the sequester cuts to Medicare providers will continue to pay for non-Medicare programs. It’s clear the GOP-led Congress still sees Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as piggy banks to fund other legislative priorities and this hostage-taking, threats to benefits and crisis creation will continue.
Max Richtman via Entitled to Know.
via twitter.
Related Reading:
The Trump administration has sent a grim message to America’s seniors.
President Trump’s 2020 budget proposal shortchanges seniors by:
- Slashing $845 billion from Medicare.
- Cutting $25 billion from Social Security Disability Insurance.
- Gutting Medicaid by 1.5 trillion.
- Cutting the Social Security Administration’s operating budget by 3.5%.
America’s seniors, people with disabilities and their families who
depend on Social Security have legitimate reason to be scared whenever
Congress starts cutting backdoor deals because they know from experience
that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have been used as piggy
banks or political hostages by GOP leaders always looking for ways to
cut benefits.