Older Americans & Seniors

Democrats are steadfast advocates for America’s seniors, their peace of mind, and the issues they care about— including retirement security, the health of Medicare, and the high cost of prescription drugs. Democrats strongly support Social Security and Medicare and oppose efforts to privatize them. We’ve worked to ensure the strength and long-term solvency of those vital programs, so that they can support not just today’s seniors, but the generations to come. Democrats have worked to improve and modernize the Social Security program by investing in technology to enable the Social Security Administration to more efficiently process the increasing number of retirees and claims, and by improving the speed and quality of services for retirees.

Democrats also consistently fight to strengthen the Medicare program and help ensure that seniors can see their doctors. The newly enacted health insurance reform law extends the fiscal solvency of the Medicare program, while improving Medicare benefits, nursing home care, and chronic disease coverage, and reining in waste, fraud, and abuse. The new law also lowers prescription drug costs for seniors by offering discounts of up to 50 percent on prescriptions for those in the Part D coverage gap, and closing the coverage hole completely over the next several years.

The Republican budget repeals these benefits and ends Medicare, increasing health care costs for seniors by more than $6,000. The Republican budget reopens the prescription drug donut hole, costing an estimated 4 million seniors who fall into the coverage gap up to $44 billion by 2020, including $2.2 billion in 2012 alone. It also increases the cost of wellness visits, forcing at least one million seniors and people with disabilities to pay over $110 million more for this critical service in 2012. Their budget also cuts Medicaid by almost $800 billion, jeopardizing access to and quality of health care for seniors in nursing homes.

Democrats’ priorities stand in stark contrast to the Republican budget that makes the wrong choices and attempts to balance the budget on the backs of seniors. We are committed to protecting and strengthening programs that seniors rely on and support a balanced approach to deficit reduction that will strengthen the solvency of our entitlements and protect America’s seniors.