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#politics #health care #medicare #jamie raskin #p2 #seniors #elderly #retirement #retirees #retirement crisis #entitlements #entitlement reform #earned benefits #healthcare #older americansMore you might like
When a candidate promises to “save these programs for future generations” by raising the retirement age, raising the Medicare eligibility age, privatizing Social Security, changing the COLA formula and means-testing Social Security while exempting near retirees what they’re actually saying is: “We know seniors vote so we’ll protect them now and slash future benefits for their children and grandchildren instead.
TOMORROW (5/1/2018):
Join us on Facebook Live for a town hall on Medicare with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), National Committee President Max Richtman, and an audience of seniors in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Join us here:
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In a New Hampshire speech, New Jersey’s GOP governor proposed an overhaul of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare that would reduce benefits for some retired seniors, eliminating them entirely for individuals with income over $200,000 and raising the retirement age to 69.
via NJ Today.
This isn’t anything new. Christie is very vocal when it comes to earned benefits.
Related Reading:
Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, has come a long way since its creation in 1965 when nearly half of all seniors were uninsured. Now the program covers 55 million people, providing insurance to one in six Americans. With that in mind, Medicare faces a host of challenges in the decades to come. Here’s a look at some of them.
via Kaiser Health News.
Related Reading:
- The Case for Expanding Medicare.
- Hearing Loss: The Economic, Social and Medical Factors Impacting Healthy Aging.
Deficit hawks likely will pressure the White House to accept cuts in Social Security and Medicare for future retirees, protecting those already retired or close to it. Their political goal will be to defang public opposition, since younger workers tend not to focus much on retirement when it is several decades away.
But that approach is not going to work. Retirees and their advocacy groups will fiercely resist cutting benefits down the road, because they understand the critical importance of Social Security and Medicare benefits. They also care about the future retirement of their own children. And numerous polls show that the public opposes benefit cuts - a view that is common across all demographic groups and political affiliations.
via Reuters.
Related Reading:
- New Poll Shows Majorities Do Not Support GOP Proposals for Social Security and Medicare.
- In the poll of likely voters, 79% favor increasing Social Security
benefits — and funding that increase by having wealthy Americans pay
the same rate into Social Security as everyone else. Seventy-seven
percent oppose raising the Social Security retirement age to 69, and a
whopping 93% favor allowing Medicare to negotiate to bring down the
price of prescription drugs.
…Here we are, eleven years later, facing another existential threat to our health and retirement income security. But this time the threat is worse, the peril more palpable. The millions of workers, retirees, the disabled and their families who depend on Social Security and Medicare have cause for grave concern.
More on this issue here.
Though Medicare is an essential part of retirement, pre-retirees continue to have misconceptions on how the federal program works.
Close to 90 percent of older Americans either enrolled in Medicare or plan to sign up for coverage, according to a recent survey from Nationwide Retirement Institute.
The insurer’s research arm worked with The Harris Poll to survey 1,007 adults over age 50 with a household income of at least $150,000.
More than 7 out of 10 participants said that they wish they better understood Medicare coverage.
via CNBC.
Related Reading:
Read more about Medicare by visiting our fast facts page by clicking here.
Embedded in the Affordable Care Act were a raft of pilot projects and provisions to make medical care for retirees less expensive. The drafters of the act wanted to make doctors more accountable, share in cost savings and cut hospital re-admissions. The Act even cracked down on fraud and abuse in Medicare.
Two-thirds of traditional Medicare beneficiaries older than 65 have multiple chronic conditions, according to a USA TODAY analysis of county-level Medicare data. More than 4 million — about 15% — have at least six long-term ailments. Those sickest seniors account for more than 41% of the $324 billion spent on traditional Medicare.
via USA Today.
Related Reading:

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure becomes the first black woman to lead the agency that oversees #Medicare and #Medicaid. She is a major improvement over President Trump’s CMS administrator, who undermined Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/us/politics/chiquita-brooks-lasure-medicare-medicaid.html @CMSGov







