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Unfortunately, preserving Medicare and Social Security benefits could be among the first of his promises to go. Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have vowed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act will be one of their first acts. For seniors, that means billions in lost Medicare benefits, the return of the Part D prescription drug donut hole and years of solvency taken from Medicare.
via Entitled to Know.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Wednesday called on President-elect Donald Trump to announce he would veto any legislation to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, or admit that he “lied” to the American people.
via The Hill.
Related Reading:
- Repeal of the Affordable Care Act Compromises Medicare, Costs Seniors.
- “Since the law’s enactment more than 11 million seniors and people with
disabilities have received savings and discounts in the Part D donut
hole of over $23.5 billion on prescription drugs, an average of $2,127
per beneficiary. In 2015 alone, an estimated 39.2 million people with
Medicare took advantage of at least one preventive service with no
copays or deductibles.”
With statistics like this… why is Congress even considering cutting Social Security and Medicare and killing the ACA.
More here:
BREAKING NEWS:
Tom Leppert, the former mayor of Dallas who, it was announced Monday, is a member of Donald Trump’s “landing team” for the Social Security Administration, once released a plan calling for the privatization of Social Security and Medicare.
via CNN MONEY.
Related Reading:
- The Trump Conundrum: He Can’t Keep His Promise to Seniors While Also Repealing Obamacare.
- The problem for President-elect Trump is that the American people fully
expect his administration to now keep that campaign
promise. Unfortunately, preserving Medicare and Social Security benefits
could be among the first of his promises to go. Trump and Republican
leaders in Congress have vowed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act will be one of their first acts.
Subscribe for free to our award-winning blog, Entitled to Know, for fresh insights on issues affecting seniors and their families: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
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Congress often waits for a new president to take office before it gets down to business. This year, Republicans will drop that custom in their dash to scrap the Affordable Care Act.
via New York Times.
Related Reading:
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act Compromises Medicare, Costs Seniors.
A Dangerous New Year for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
PETITION ALERT
Medicare provides essential medical benefits and financial security to 55 million Americans. This vital program must not be turned into a “coupon care” system that would cost seniors more but give them less coverage, thereby putting their health and economic security in jeopardy.
The Affordable Care Act strengthens Medicare’s financing by extending the solvency of the Medicare Part A Trust Fund by more than a decade, and it lowers Part B out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries and closes the Part D prescription drug doughnut hole.
Social Security is an earned benefit and a major source of income for most of America’s elderly with 46% of retirees depending on Social Security for 90% or more of their income and an average monthly benefit of just $1,340.
In poll after poll, Americans of all political stripes are united in their belief that Social Security and Medicare benefits must not be cut. Instead, Congress should be talking about boosting benefits to protect working class Americans and retirees.
I urge you to lead Congress in rejecting any proposal that cuts or fundamentally changes our earned Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Sign our petition here.
NEWS RELEASE
The Senate leadership has taken the first dangerous step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act. Repeal of the ACA will pull the plug on the 30 million Americans who now depend on it for health care — not to mention the 57 million seniors and disabled who benefit every day from the ACA’s improvements to Medicare.
Read more here.
First to go: Traditional Medicare will be shredded when the Affordable Care Act is repealed.
As the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare noted, “destroying traditional Medicare in favor of a privatized CouponCare system is at the top of the Republican agenda.” Paul Ryan has long had the program in his sights and while President-Elect Donald Trump has sent mixed messages about what he specifically plans to do, his standard blanket answer of “it will be better” hasn’t assuaged many fears.
via Huffington Post.
Related Reading:
- The Trump Conundrum: He Can’t Keep His Promise to Seniors While Also Repealing Obamacare.
- The problem for President-elect Trump is that the American people fully
expect his administration to now keep that campaign
promise. Unfortunately, preserving Medicare and Social Security benefits
could be among the first of his promises to go.
Some News for Today!
NCPSSM MENTION
NCPSSM President Max Richtman accepts the 2014 Winn Newman Equality Award (VIDEO). – VIMEO. Acceptance speech from ADA’s 2014 Winn Newman Equality Award Honoree Max Richtman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
United Healthcare to cut doctors for Mass. Seniors. – BOSTON GLOBE. National insurance giant United Healthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials.
MEDICAID
More Than 1.7 Million Consumers Still Wait For Medicaid Decisions. – KAISER HEALTH NEWS. While an unprecedented 6 million people have gained Medicaid coverage since September, mostly as a result of the Affordable Care Act, more than 1.7 million more are still waiting for their applications to be processed—with some stuck in limbo for as long as eight months, according to officials in 15 large states.
MEDICARE
Wash. Times Editorial Spreads Slurs, Lies, on Medicare’s Trans Coverage. – ADVOCATE. An editorial for the right-wing Washington Times claims that Medicare’s new willingness to cover transgender-related health care will lead to taxpayer-funded ‘tranny grannies.’
One simple drug switch could save Medicare $18 billion over the next decade. – VOX. Suppose Medicare pays for two drugs that do the same thing, but one drug is forty times more expensive than the other. Sounds like an easy target for savings, right?
A Doctor Takes A Look In The Medicare Mirror. – NPR. After decades of fighting to keep how much Medicare pays individual doctors a secret, the federal government bowed to pressure from journalists and consumer groups and released the information in April.
HEALTHCARE
Coast-to-Coast Health Care Woe: Cost. – KAISER HEALTH NEWS. Recently, I moved across the country, from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. I drove the Southern route and decided to conduct an informal survey, asking folks I met along the way a question relevant to the health care reporting I’ve been doing for the past five years.
BLOGS
Frank Bruni Is Angry That the Government Pays 1000 Times as Much to Peter Peterson as It Does to the Average Kid. – CEPR. Actually he is not angry about how much money the government pays to Peter Peterson but if he were consistent in his logic he would be.
Half of Americans say gay marriage is a constitutional right. – WASHINGTON POST. Support for gay marriage has backed away slightly from its record high in March, but a solid majority supports it, and half go so far as to say that it is a right protected by the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The next big fight over the safety net. – WASHINGTON POST. Word has it that Democrats are set to take a shellacking in the 2014 elections, in part because midterm electorates tend to be older and whiter. So what if Dems campaigned on expanding Social Security, rather than allowing themselves to get drawn into another debate over how much to cut the program?