The Social Security and Medicare Trustees reports released today affirm the fundamental health of these important family protection programs and reinforce the need to commit the federal government to strengthening them. It is reassuring news that Social Security is projected to have enough resources to pay full benefits until 2042, one year later than predicted last year, making this the sixth year in a row that date has moved into the future. The Medicare report, which shows a loss of four years of solvency, is a bracing reminder that the same rising cost phenomenon that is impacting the private market is also affecting the future of Medicare.
The reports also underscore how the Bush administration’s unaffordable proposed tax cuts for the wealthy undermine our nation’s ability to guarantee income and health security for our seniors. According to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the amount of money President Bush has proposed to spend on tax cuts would more than solve any long-term shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare Part A. And the president’s tax cuts use up revenue needed for priorities like a Medicare prescription drug benefit. For example, the budget proposal announced by the House Budget Committee last week provides only $28 billion for a Medicare prescription drug benefit over 10 years—$372 billion less than the president’s own proposal—while setting aside $726 billion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
Instead of using the federal budget to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, the proposals from President Bush and Congressional Republicans would weaken these vital programs. President Bush’s own Social Security privatization commission found that creating privatized individual investment accounts within Social Security, as he proposed, would weaken the government’s ability to provide full Social Security benefits. Paying for private accounts would require an additional $2.2 and $2.8 trillion from taxpayers and would still include big cuts in benefits for disabled workers and the surviving children of workers who die young.
And instead of seeking to improve Medicare, the Bush administration is looking to limit the services Medicare provides and the rights of seniors to appeal bureaucrats’ decisions denying needed services. The Bush administration has also offered a prescription drug plan designed to force seniors to leave the doctors they know and trust and join a private HMO in order to get the full drug benefits, even though a recent report showed that Medicare health care costs have gone up much more slowly than costs in private plans.
The stock market collapse and corporate crimes of the past years set workers and retirees back decades in building a secure retirement, while soaring costs are putting retiree health benefits in serious jeopardy. Working families need the guarantees of Social Security and Medicare more than ever.
Contact Kathy Roeder 202-637-5018
