Medicare, Social Security and other key programs

We need to strengthen Social Security to ensure its effectiveness and proper funding for today’s beneficiaries, and tomorrow’s as well.

Since its beginnings in 1935 under FDR, the Social Security Act has served as an effective, dependable safety net for America’s seniors and disabled citizens. I believe that Social Security must be strengthened and made more efficient to continue as an effective program for future generations.

I pledge to work towards improving the program’s overall funding and safeguarding the funding guaranteed to the so-called Social Security trust funds. American seniors depend on Social Security now more than ever, and it is a system which must be preserved. Social Security also provides regular financial support to tens of thousands of disabled Americans and death benefits to survivors of Social Security beneficiaries. The long-term financial projections for Social Security funding are dire. If Congress fails to act now, future generations of Americans will face decreased benefits, higher taxes, or both. As U.S. senator, I will place changing the current course of Social Security to the top of my priorities.

Medicare
For almost fifty years, Medicare has provided dependable access to quality medical care for hundreds of millions of American seniors, saving many from poverty and sickness in their later years. The fact that out of every dollar spent on Medicare, roughly 98 cents is spent on actual medical services is a testament to the effectiveness and efficiency of this program of Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s New Society.

Much more needs to be done and I will work to ensure Medicare’s promise to tomorrow’s seniors. Medicare is in trouble: It is not immune from the increasing costs of health care that affect all Americans.

Tens of millions of Americans under age 65 are without medical coverage. Many postpone care until the day they qualify for Medicare. Having sick seniors enrolling in Medicare only increases costs for all. I will act to improve Medicare funding, and overall efficiency. Doctors should not be paid piecemeal to perform more and more treatments and services that only increase cost to individual patients and taxpayers without improving patient care.

Medicare patients should be treated to the same quality care as patients in more efficient medical systems, such as those used by the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser-Permanente of California – where payments to medical providers are based on keeping patients healthy, and for treatments that have been proven to actually work. Only by increasing Medicare’s efficiency and improving patient outcomes can we hope to sufficiently decrease healthcare spending to allow Medicare to continue on as an effective program for future generations. I pledge to be a leader in this fight.

Medicare Part-D
Medicare Part-D, the Medicare prescription drug program must be reformed. The program originally promised to offer seniors affordability, simplicity and choice – and it has in good part provided none. Under the guise of offering “competition” and “choice” the program was made extraordinarily confusing for seniors and their families to navigate. Worse, Medicare was even legally prevented from negotiating the least expensive drug costs to participants. All this was done in an effort by the Bush Administration to placate the demands of pharmaceutical manufacturers, and to help prevent Americans from continuing to buy cheaper, identical drugs from Canada and elsewhere.

The result has been confusion, a shell game of widely differing drug costs between plans:
• Plans exist one year and not the next
• The so-called “doughnut hole” deductible which can cost an individual thousands in out-of-pocket costs.
• The basic, fundamental unfairness that citizens of other countries pay a fraction of the cost for an identical drug as do Americans, because the governments of their countries directly negotiate better prices from drug manufacturers.

This system must be changed, and I will make doing so one of my goals as U.S. senator.

Support for Alzheimer’s disease Research
In addition to the tragic personal consequences of Alzheimer’s disease, if unchecked, this terrible malady promises to bankrupt our healthcare and social service systems.

Alzheimer’s currently costs the U.S. roughly $148 billion per year. The population bubble of the Baby-Boomers has already entered retirement age. Unless something is done, Alzheimer’s disease statistically will afflict more than 16 billion Americans by 2050. Medicare-Medicaid simply cannot afford this financial burden.Many families eventually place their loved one with Alzheimer’s disease in long term care. Families wipe out savings, and place their loved one on state Medicaid programs, an expense covered by taxpayers.

Alzheimer’s disease simply must be cured. I have witnessed the pain of this disease and will act with Congress to fund whatever research is needed to stop it. America’s families and our healthcare systems depend on it.