| Reminder: Medicare is an earned benefit |
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GIVE NOW to Keep Medicare Strong!
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Dear John,
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Today, we're celebrating Medicare's 55th Anniversary! That's 55 years of providing health insurance to tens of millions of retired Americans and helping to keep older Americans out of poverty. But despite the fact that Medicare continues to be enormously successful and popular, this program is being offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of deficit reduction and paying for other fiscal priorities. It's a complete inversion of what our national priorities should be, especially at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has hit older Americans particularly hard.
We hear troubling rhetoric on Medicare from fiscal hawks in Congress and the Administration alike. President Trump has already proposed slashing billions from this critical program. Yet, such callous cuts would do real harm to millions of older Americans who have paid into and are counting on their earned Medicare benefits to keep them healthy. Instead, a good first step to improving Medicare's solvency is for the Senate to hold a vote on the "Lower Drug Costs Now Act" (H.R. 3), a historic bill that passed in the House and would, among other measures, allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices (something currently forbidden under the law!).
Right now Medicare is facing real danger. This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in an ongoing federal lawsuit, Texas v. California, which challenges the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The high court's decision could take away health care coverage from millions of Americans and harm the affordability and accessibility of health care for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. If the pandemic spikes again in the fall, as some epidemiologists predict, protections for pre-existing conditions, Medicare free preventive care services, lower prescription drug costs and Medicaid expansion would be in jeopardy.
With so much at stake during this public health and economic crisis, will you do your part to help? We need everyone who has ever fought for Medicare to participate. This fight is too important to sit on the fence! Any gift, in any amount you can afford to donate, will be greatly appreciated and go to the frontlines of the National Committee's full-scale battle to protect and strengthen Medicare for another 55 years and beyond.
With your support, we will continue to make it clear to the President and members of Congress that Medicare is an earned benefit — you paid into this program your entire working life in exchange for health benefits during your senior years — and it is not to be used as a piggy bank by politicians in Washington to pay for other fiscal priorities!
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| Sincerely, |
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Max Richtman
President & CEO
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