Seniors
I am very committed to addressing the challenges facing Social Security and in protecting it for current workers, as well as future retirees.
Social Security
Many seniors live on a fixed income, and I know how important Social Security checks are for their medicines and day-to-day living expenses. But, to ensure that future retirees will receive the benefits they have been promised, it will be necessary to make some fundamental improvements to the Social Security System. Based on current forecasts, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037. But in 2011, Social Security will see its expenditures exceed its revenues for the first time in the program's history.
I am very committed to addressing the challenges facing Social Security and in protecting it for current workers, as well as future retirees. While the system is not facing an imminent crisis, it will face some irrefutable structural problems in the not-too-distant future. And every year that we delay addressing the issue, the solutions become more expensive and more painful.
Medicare
Like Social Security, Medicare has become a critical component of the social safety net upon which many of our senior citizens rely. And also like Social Security, Medicare is on an unsustainable funding path that will render it bankrupt by 2017 unless significant reforms are undertaken. And making matters even worse, the healthcare reform that was recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, cuts an additional $455 billion from Medicare Advantage.