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Seniors Taking Anger over Medicare, Social Security to Capitol Hill |
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America’s seniors voted in greater numbers than any other segment of the population in 2004. With midterm elections more than two months away, seniors are angry—and they intend to put members of Congress on notice that they plan to clean house and elect a senior-friendly Congress.
According to the Alliance for Retired Americans’ most recent congressional voting record, 170 House members and 40 senators had a “0” score on seniors’ issues, meaning they voted against the best interests of the nation’s seniors every chance they could.
And America’s seniors have vowed they won’t forget those representatives and senators in November. Edward Coyle, executive director of the more than 3 million-member Alliance, puts it this way:
This past year we saw Congress once again enact legislation that worsened the nation’s budget and fiscal crisis at the expense of retirees and older Americans. In the face of the largest deficits in the nation’s history, Congress deepened the crisis and favored only the wealthiest Americans with tax cuts. In addition, even before the Medicare Part D prescription drug program went into effect, its many flaws were exposed and Congress did nothing.
With both President Bush and senior Republicans in the U.S. House pledging to put Social Security “reform” high on their 2007 agenda, it is more important than ever for workers and retirees to have a member of Congress who will fight for them.
Nearly 600 Alliance members will deliver that message to their representatives in person Sept. 7 during a massive lobby day on Capitol Hill. The lobby day is one of the highlights of the Alliance’s convention in Washington, D.C., Sept. 5–8.
Key issues on the agenda include getting rid of the Medicare donut hole and strengthening Social Security. When they visit their representatives next week, the seniors will deliver donuts to them to symbolize the donut hole, the gap in coverage in the Bush Medicare prescription drug plan that forces seniors to pay $3,000 out of their pockets for drugs they need to live.
The Alliance is collecting stories from members across the country about their experiences with the Part D donut hole. If you have fallen into the donut hole, or soon will, please share your story by sending an e-mail to amybuff@retiredamericans.org. Please include contact information.
Under the new Medicare Part D rules passed by Congress in 2003, out-of-pocket prescription expenses between the annual amounts of $2,251 and $5,100 are not covered. Of the 11.8 million Medicare enrollees whose plans include a coverage gap, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates at least 6.9 million of them could hit the dounut hole.
A report by the Institute for America’s Future, the research arm of the Campaign for America’s Future, finds the average Medicare-eligible recipient will fall into the donut hole on Sept. 22 this year and 55 percent of those who fall into the hole will not be able to escape it. Coyle says the retirees will fight to fix the terribly flawed Medicare drug law with a real drug benefit that has no holes, donut or otherwise.
At the same time, retirees are fighting to save Social Security from privatization—a backdoor effort to give millions to Wall Street in private retirement accounts. Even though retirees and workers last year stopped the plan through hundreds of thousands of letters and e-mails to the White House and Congress, Bush and his congressional cronies are still determined to privatize the nation’s most successful safety net if the Republicans retain control of Congress in 2007.
Bush already has included a request in his proposed fiscal 2007 budget for $721 billion over the next 10 years to turn Social Security into a system of private accounts with lower guaranteed benefits. Bush’s proposal includes significant cuts in guaranteed benefits for the vast majority of Social Security recipients through the indexing of initial benefits to prices, rather than wages.
Seniors clearly disagree with the Bush plan. As Alliance President George Kourpias says:
Social Security’s surplus should be used for one purpose and one purpose only: to fund the guaranteed benefits Americans earned and deserve. It’s time to kill the idea of private accounts and propose real solutions to strengthening Social Security.
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