Join us today at 11:30am EST on Facebook Live as we broadcast from Capitol Hill on new polling data on Social Security and Medicare.
Click here to visit our Facebook page.
See more posts like this on Tumblr
#social security #medicare #polling #polls #seniors #older americans #elderly #social insurance #entitlements #entitlement reform #retirement #retirement crisis #p2More you might like
Please join us Tuesday (2/14/2017) on Facebook Live at 11:30am EST as we release new polling data on Social Security and Medicare.
Do older Americans want bigger Social Security checks and expanded Medicare coverage – or do they want their benefits cut?
That is the fundamental question for seniors and their families with less than two weeks until the mid-term elections. The majority party in Congress has proposed time and again to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits under the guise of ‘entitlement reform.’ Leader Mitch McConnell just attributed the swelling federal debt to retirees’ earned benefits – when the real culprit was the 2017 tax package that mainly benefited the wealthy and big corporations.
The majority party’s 2018 and 2019 budgets would have taken a $500 billion bite out of Medicare and $64 billion from Social Security. And make no mistake – conservative tropes like raising the eligibility age, imposing a more meager inflation formula, and means testing are benefit cuts.
Read more from our op-ed by clicking here.
While the government shutdown has not affected Social Security or Medicare, low income seniors receiving food assistance remain at risk. Some five million older Americans receive grocery vouchers from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and administered by the states.
USDA is one of the federal agencies affected by the government shutdown. Fortunately, January’s SNAP benefits were paid, and the agency issued February’s payments ten days early before it officially ran out of funding last weekend. But this leaves all SNAP beneficiaries – including low income seniors – in a bind for two reasons.
Read more from this blog post by clicking through.
via twitter.
Related Reading:
Trump 2019 Budget Shortchanges Seniors, Poor, Disabled.
- President Trump released an FY 2019 budget today proposing deep spending reductions for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and myriad other federal programs that help older Americans, the poor, and people with disabilities.
“In addition, beneficiaries who have their Medicare Part B premiums paid by state medical assistance programs will see no change in their Social Security benefit”. Like this year, plummeting gas prices accounted for the drop in total costs in those years.
Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said that the combination of no COLA and the skyrocketing Medicare Part B premium would make it a particularly tough year for seniors in 2016.
via Wireless Goodness.
Related Reading:
For millions of seniors, this large Medicare hike is devastating and a result of a well-intended “hold harmless” provision that left out too many Medicare beneficiaries.
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?
The movement in Washington to gut our most crucial social insurance programs - not only Social Security and Medicare, but Medicaid, too - amounts to nothing less than a war on the working class: people at all levels of income and employment who are counting on retirement income and health security. We in the advocacy community, empowered by workers and beneficiaries across the country, are gearing up for battle.
via Entitled to Know.
The movement in Washington to gut our most crucial social insurance programs - not only Social Security and Medicare, but Medicaid, too - amounts to nothing less than a war on the working class: people at all levels of income and employment who are counting on retirement income and health security.
via Huffington Post.
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%.
Investment in home and community-based care is popular and must be included in #infrastructure. Now it’s up to Congress to get it done. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/elder-care-congress.html #HCBS @nytimes