Issue Position: Healthcare and Social Security

Issue Position

Too many Americans live in jeopardy of not having enough money for necessary medical care or an adequate retirement. This is wrong and it should not be the reality in the wealthiest nation on earth.

Grace believes that Social Security and Medicare benefits should not be reduced from their current levels. She will continue to oppose measures that seek to privatize either, as well as measures that would require recipients to pay more out-of-pocket for health care in old age or for the retirement benefits they have already earned through a lifetime of work.

Grace is the author of H.R. 892, the "Locality-based Social Security Benefits Act" which would ensure that Social Security benefits are increased in higher cost-of-living areas, just like pay for federal workers. Every New Yorker knows that the cost-of-living in New York City is not the same as somewhere like rural Tennessee, and Grace believes that Social Security benefits should recognize that obvious fact. Grace also supports the "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act" that would provide meaningful health care for every American, as well as the "Seniors Have Eyes, Ears, and Teeth Act" which would expand Medicare coverage to include eyeglasses, hearing aids, and dental care.

The knowledge that access to affordable healthcare is within reach and that retirement is guaranteed is essential for a true sense of economic security for every American worker. The right to these basic features of any advanced economy will lead to increased productivity within the American workforce, and is something for which Grace will continue to fight.

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