Social Security and Seniors
Looking Out for the Interest of Seniors
During the 111th Congress, Congresswoman Richardson introduced H.R. 4819, Expanding Opporunities for Older Americans Act. This bill helps seniors by amending the Older Americans Act of 1965 to expand the Senior Community Service Employment (SCSE) Program, lowers the eligibility age from 55 to 52, repeals the requirement that the eligible individual be unemployed and prohibits any limit of fewer than 40 hours per week on the number of hours per week a grant recipient may permit a participant to work in a job assisted under the grant.
Strengthening Social Security
For 75 years, Social Security has been a promise to all Americans of a chance to retire with dignity after a lifetime of hard work. Congresswoman Richardson believes that we MUST keep that promise: to safeguard Social Security for our seniors, people with disabilities, and all Americans – today, tomorrow, and forever.
During the 111th Congress, Congresswoman Richardson introduced H.R. 6294, Social Security Dividend Act of 2010 and to help address the many problems Social Security faces. This bill seeks to automatically issue Social Security beneficiaries a $250 check in any year that a COLA is not administered. This additional income will help ease the burden of unexpected expenses and the continual increase in the real cost of living.
In addition, during the 112th Congress, Congresswoman Richardson was a cosponser of H.R. 798, Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act, which directs the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor to prepare and publish a monthly Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPIEC) that indicates changes over time in expenditures for consumption which are typical for individuals aged 62 years of age or older.
During the 111th Congress, Congresswoman Richardson was a cosponsor of H.R. 235, Social Security Fairness Act, which repeals the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). The GPO provision reduces a widowed spouse's potential Social Security benefits by two-thirds if his or her partner received pension payments from a non-Social Security plan. The WEP provision reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who also have pension benefits from employment not covered by Social Security.
Congresswoman Richardson also voted in favor of H.R. 5987 Seniors Protection Act, which would have provided a one-time, $250 payment to recipients of Social Security and other Federal benefits, in the event that no cost-of-living adjustment is available in 2011.
Protecting Medicare
Congresswoman Richardson voted in favor of the following bills regarding Medicare:
H.R. 6331, the Medicare Bill
- Extends and expands Medicare coverage for various programs and revises regulatuons regarding Medicare fee-for-service programs.
H.R. 3631, Medicare Premium Fairness Act
- Would have ensured that all Medicare enrollees would be protected from an increase in the Medicare Part B premium in 2010 and that no seniors would see a cut in their Social Security checks.
H.R. 3962, Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010
- Ensures that seniors will continue to have access to the doctors of their choice under Medicare, by blocking a scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians, which would have led to many doctors stopping seeing Medicare patients. The bill also updated physician payments by 2.2 percent.
Additionally, Congresswoman Richardson was opposed to H.Con.Res 34, a plan proposed by Congressman Ryan that would turn Medicare into a voucher system, ending the government guarantee Americans pay into with a lifetime of work, and sending seniors out into the private insurance market to fend for themselves with a voucher that decreases in value each year.
Health Care for Seniors
Congresswoman Richardson is committed to improving health care for America's seniors and is in favor of the following legislation that has been signed into law:
Affordable Care Act
- Saves millions of seniors up to thousands of dollars on their prescription drug costs each year by phasing out the Medicare prescription drug 'donut hole' coverage gap. In 2010, 4 million seniors who hit the donut hole are receiving a $250 rebate check. Beginning in 2011, seniors who hit the donut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs, and the donut hole is completely closed by 2020.
- Beginning on January 1, 2011, provides that seniors will receive, under Medicare, free preventive services such as mammograms and certain colon cancer tests and a free annual physical.
- Strengthens Medicare by extending its solvency by an additional 12 years, from 2017 to 2029.
- Includes Medicare efficiencies, so that experts estimate that seniors will save on average nearly $200 per year in premiums and over $200 per year in co-payments in 2018 compared to what they would have paid without the new law.
- Improves the quality of care by providing incentives, under Medicare, for doctors to work together to coordinate the care of the individual patient, particularly critical for chronic conditions like diabetes.
- Creates a new voluntary long-term care insurance program called CLASS, which will provide a cash benefit to help seniors obtain services and supports that will help them to remain in their homes.
- To help offset the cost of employer-based retiree health plans, creates a program to preserve those plans and help people who retire before age 65 get the affordable care they need.
- Contains new tools to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare – including strengthening the screenings of providers who want to participate in Medicare and strengthening criminal penalties.
- Contains provisions to improve the quality of care in nursing homes, including facilitating the filing of complaints and establishing a nationwide program of background checks for employees in nursing homes.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
- Ensures needed funding for long-term care by increasing the federal match for Medicaid through 2010, which is the key program for helping pay for long-term care for low-income seniors and seniors who have exhausted their retirement savings. Medicaid covers more than two-thirds of all nursing home residents.
- Invests $10 billion in critical health research, in order to advance research capable of making breakthroughs in the areas of such illnesses as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cancer, and heart disease.
- Invests $19 billion to accelerate the adoption of Health Information Technology (HIT) systems by doctors and hospitals, to modernize the health care system, save billions, reduce errors and improve quality.