Issue Position: Seniors

Issue Position

Keeping Our Promises to Seniors

How we treat our aging parents and grandparents is one of the most important measures of who we are as a people. Social Security and Medicare represent a solemn promise to the senior citizens who have worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, played by the rules and helped make this country great. America must honor its promise to seniors. And in Congress, I'll fight to make sure we do by:

Protecting Social Security

While we certainly must address the long-term funding shortfall, I am strongly opposed to any proposals to cut or privatize Social Security. For many of our seniors, Social Security is truly a lifeline and they depend on it for their survival. For others, Social Security represents an important part of their retirement income. Either way, they've earned and deserve their benefits, and I'll fight to make sure they keep them.

Strengthening Medicare

Like Social Security, Medicare serves as an important lifeline for so many of our seniors. That's why I support commonsense measures to lower costs and strengthen Medicare -- like increasing the use of electronic records, improving the coordination of services, cracking down on fraud and abuse, and using the government's negotiating power to lower prescription drug costs.

Unfortunately Mike Turner and others in Washington have thrown their support behind an extreme plan by Rep. Paul Ryan that would dismantle Medicare and replace it with a voucher system that would stick seniors with higher costs and leave them to fend for themselves with the big insurance companies. It's a plan that the Wall Street Journal says, "would essentially end Medicare."

We need to protect and strengthen Medicare, not replace it with a risky scheme.

Providing Financial Security

The economic crisis that began in 2007 has reminded us how important it is to ensure that our seniors are financially secure in their retirement. In Congress, I'll fight to make sure that all retirees receive the pensions and benefits they have earned and deserve. We must also work to prevent such dramatic market collapses in order to protect people's hard earned savings.

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