Medicare
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- Standing apart from my colleagues in securing Medicare’s promise to seniors by taking this vital program off of its unsustainable fiscal path.
- Proposed comprehensive and compassionate reforms to make Medicare permanently solvent and give future beneficiaries greater control over their health care decisions.
Medicare provides millions of seniors with access to lifesaving medical treatments and prescription drugs. Unfortunately, out-of-control spending and skyrocketing health care costs threaten the future of this program. Medicare alone has a $34 trillion unfunded liability, and it is getting progressively larger every year Congress does nothing. If left unreformed, these health care costs will impose a crushing financial burden on our economy and fail in their promise to provide the vital benefits to those in the most need. Through bold and innovative proposals, I have challenged Congress to focus on restraining the skyrocketing costs of health care and setting the Medicare program back on the path of long-term fiscal sustainability.
I believe that an essential part of improving quality while reducing overall costs involves remodeling the Medicare program to fit the needs of the beneficiary. I have introduced comprehensive health care reform legislation that redesigns Medicare, protects access to health care services for beneficiaries, and restores the fundamental relationship between doctors and patients. I preserve the current Medicare system for those in or near retirement. For those who will reach retirement age in 2019, my proposals will give individuals the opportunity to purchase a health care plan of their choosing – either from a Medicare-certified plan or a plan of their choosing. Medicare will provide vouchers that are risk-adjusted so those who are sicker will receive greater assistance. It is also adjusted for income, so that low-income seniors will also receive additional assistance to cover their out out-of-pocket costs.
While addressing the long-term Medicare challenges, I have also pushed for reforms to the outdated Medicare Reimbursement formula for providers that have become an annual threat to seniors and their doctors. The scheduled annual reimbursement cuts would drive doctors to drop their Medicare patients, threatening seniors’ access to essential health care services. I have consistently fought to ensure that physicians providing assistance to Medicare beneficiaries are appropriately compensated, and have gone further to advocate for reforms to the outdated payment rate formula.
I will continue my efforts to keep the government out of the doctor’s office and allow seniors and their doctors the freedom to decide what is best.
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