By Authority: Cummings for Congress, Ron Thompson, Treasurer

Preserving Medicare & Medicaid:

Caring for Those in Need

Congressman Elijah Cummings

June, 2011

Perhaps most morally bankrupt of all the Republican budget proposals is their attack on our national commitment to Medicaid and Medicare.

The Critical Importance of Medicaid for our Seniors and their Families

Republicans would slash federal Medicaid spending by $771 billion over the next 10 years – demanding, in effect, that seniors and the disabled pay for most of that $1 trillion in additional Republican tax breaks for the most affluent.

For any of us who do not realize how critical Medicaid funding is to our seniors’ well-being, consider this.

Fully 42 percent of all long-term nursing and in-home care for America’s senior citizens is paid for by Medicaid.  When Medicaid’s care for individuals with disabilities is included, the percentage increases to two-thirds.

The Republican cuts to Medicaid would be catastrophic.  Facing serious budget constraints, state governments would be unable to effectively cover a $771 billion Republican cut in federal funding.

Our seniors, along with their middle-aged children, would then be left with the bills, bulldozing them into a financial landfill.

Preserving Medicaid is a financial imperative for America’s working families.  Adequately funding Medicaid is a moral commitment that our society must fulfill.

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Standing Up for Medicare

Keeping America’s Generational Covenant

The Republicans’ demand that we cut Medicare benefits would be devastating – and not only for Americans under the age of 55, as Republicans claim.

Republicans would immediately raise our current seniors’ healthcare costs by taking away the free preventive care benefit and reinstituting the prescription drug “donut hole.”

Perhaps even more damaging, by eliminating Americans under the age of 55 from traditional Medicare, Republicans would undercut the broad public support that has preserved this essential healthcare program.

Despite their paying into the Medicare Trust Fund for all of their working lives, Medicare’s guaranteed benefits would be taken away for those Americans who now are under 55.

Under the Republicans’ Medicare proposal, future seniors would receive a voucher from the government each year and be forced to shop for their own private health insurance.  Private insurance company bureaucrats would be placed in charge of their healthcare.

The projected additional cost for those seniors would be substantial.  In Maryland, seniors’ out-of-pocket annual expenses would more than double by 2022 under the Republican proposal, reaching an individual budget-busting burden of $13,368 each year.

Here is the alarming reality, as expressed by Democrats who serve on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

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Republicans’ vote to end Medicare would force seniors to find private insurance with the assistance of a voucher. Since the voucher’s value relative to health costs would decrease over time and private insurance costs are higher than traditional Medicare, seniors retiring in 2022 would pay much higher costs than under current law. This means Americans under 55 better start saving a lot more.

To pay for health care under the GOP Plan, Americans under 55 will have to save hundreds of thousands of dollars over and above what they should already be saving.

According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a 54-year-old today would need to put away $182,000 more by the time they retire just to pay for the additional costs imposed by the Republican plan. That’s about $250 every week for the next 11 years ontop of what they already should be saving for retirement. For those younger than 54, the news is even more startling.

Nearly half of all workers in America do not have any retirement savings at all.

For those that do, the current median retirement account balances ($32,000 in 2007, i.e., before the crash) are not nearly enough to provide for a secure retirement, let alone cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional costs.

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Along with my Democratic colleagues in the Senate and House, I will fight to preserve Medicare and Medicaid as a guaranteed healthcare benefits.  Washington must find a better way to balance our national accounts than on the backs of seniors and their families.

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