Seniors
Rep. Chu speaks with senior citizens at the AltaMed Health Services in El Monte
“Seniors are the bedrock of our communities. They have worked hard all their lives and built our communities. Now, like so many Americans, they are struggling and face particular challenges including high health care costs and income insecurity. America pioneered a social safety net to provide for people as they enter retirement – and they have earned it! We must never neglect that responsibility to our seniors.”
- Rep. Judy Chu
I share with seniors their concerns about protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. That’s why I have continually fought to protect these programs that provide vital resources for retirees who have worked hard, contributed into these benefits throughout their lives, and rely on them to help cover living and medical costs.
My priorities for our seniors include:
Protecting Social Security
Strengthening Medicare
Healthcare Reform for Seniors
Protecting Social Security
Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, creating an enduring promise to America’s seniors that the retirement program they paid into their entire working lives will provide them a stable source of income.
The status and continuation of Social Security is a major concern of the American people. A strong priority of mine is the preservation—not privatization—of Social Security. I believe we must:
- Protect seniors’ contributions to Social Security – These funds belong to the people who have worked hard all their lives and contributed to the program, not to the government.
- Keep our promise to seniors – Social Security is a part of retirement and economic security for millions of retirees. It is a part of a promise and commitment made to the people and it cannot be broken.
In an effort to protect Social Security from further cuts and to strengthen it for years to come, I support the following legislation:
The Preserving Our Promise to Seniors Act of 2011 (H.R. 539) strengthens Social Security for the next 75 years. This bill would improve benefits by fixing the outdated Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) formula and phase out the payroll tax exemption on incomes over $106,800. It would also extend the COLA formula to seniors’ health care and other costs through a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly.
The Social Security Fairness Act of 2011 (H.R. 1332) repeals unfair benefits penalties. This bill would put the money seniors have earned back in their pockets by eliminating unfair penalties on spouses with government pensions and other unnecessary reductions to worker benefits that can significantly reduce the retirement pay for millions of hard-working public servants, even though they have worked for relatively lower wages than most private sector workers.
Opposing Raising the Retirement Age (H.RES. 1670). This resolution upholds the belief that recovery should not come at the expense of retirees, many of whom have worked blue-collar jobs and physically demanding jobs and may not be able to work in their mid-60s.
Strengthening Medicare
Current and future taxpayers will be faced with enormous burdens to sustain the Medicare program as it is today. Without any change in the program, Medicare will consume a larger share of federal income taxes, rising almost 40% of all federal income taxes by 2030.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965, our nation made a bedrock promise to American seniors: after a lifetime of work, Americans could count on the stability and security of reliable, dependable, high-quality health insurance. We must find a way to reduce Medicare’s cost as a proportion of our national budget while strengthening and protecting the program that has benefited so many American seniors.
But recent efforts in Congress have tried to end Medicare and replace it with a system where seniors would get a voucher to go out and buy private insurance resulting in a reduction in benefits and increasing seniors’ out of pocket health care costs. There have also been efforts to cut benefits for current Medicare beneficiaries by re-opening the prescription drug donut hole – costing an estimated 4 million seniors up to $44 billion by 2020 – and increasing the costs of annual wellness visits and other preventive services for millions of seniors.
Keeping Medicare Solvent - I voted for healthcare reform because it strengthens Medicare for seniors by extending Medicare’s solvency. According to a report released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the healthcare reform extends the solvency of Medicare by 12 years – from 2017 to 2029 – protecting guaranteed benefits and strengthening health care services for America’s seniors and disabled workers.
In addition, the health reform bill does the following for Medicare enrollees: lowers prescription drug costs, makes preventive care free, ensures that you can keep your doctor, improves the quality of your care, and extends the program’s solvency by nearly a decade.
Ensuring Stable Medicare Premiums During the Recession - I voted in favor of the Medicare Premium Fairness Act (H.R. 3631). This bill protects all Medicare enrollees from an increase larger than the Social Security COLA, so that the 2010 Part B premiums will remain the same and no seniors will see a cut in their Social Security checks. Without action, some enrollees would see their Part B premium increase to $110-120 per month, most affecting low-income dual enrollees and new Medicare enrollees. This would be an undue burden during a recession.
Health care Reform for Seniors
Seniors and older Americans age 55 to 64 face unique and often daunting challenges in finding affordable, high-quality health care. Their costs tend to be higher than the rest of the country, they are more likely to have chronic conditions, and they are more likely to be denied care when they get sick. They also have to deal with insurance companies charging older Americans substantially more for the same coverage—sometimes as much as 11 times more.
I voted in favor of the historic Affordable Care Act, which
- Provides Free Preventative and Wellness Care - Healthcare reform addresses many of the vulnerabilities seniors face in obtaining and paying for quality health care. One of the biggest reforms in the bill is free preventative and wellness care for Medicare beneficiaries.
- Closes the Donut Hole – Health care reform gives seniors in the Medicare Part D prescription drug "donut hole" coverage gap a $250 rebate. And it later completely closes the dreaded donut hole, a coverage gap that is life-threatening for many.
- Makes Seniors Healthcare More Affordable - Healthcare reform ends the insurance company practice of pricing people out of coverage because they have an existing health problem or arbitrarily limiting the amount of care someone can receive. It also makes insurance more affordable for seniors by limiting an insurance companies’ ability to charge higher premiums based solely on age.
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