The Affordable Care Act-- A Winner For Seniors

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, the government announced yesterday good news for seniors: their Medicare part B premiums for 2014 will go up zero dollars and zero cents. It will stay at $104 per month. This is now the third year in a row that CMS Medicare part B premiums have defied the trustees' predictions and have come in lower than projected. It also defies the relentless campaign of misinformation that seniors have been subjected to that their Medicare part B premiums are going to go up.

Just on Friday, I was at a senior fair where a woman showed me a chain email that read that Medicare part B premiums for 2014 were going up to $247 a month--just a viral infection that has been out there and that I have been confronted with at senior centers over and over again. The facts are that they are going up zero. Medicare Advantage premiums have stabilized. Medicare part B premiums have stabilized. Prescription drug costs have gone down because of closing the doughnut hole.

In every respect, the Affordable Care Act since it passed in 2010 has been a winner for seniors, and it has helped strengthen the solvency of the program. Again, Medicare part B premiums are going up zero for 2014.

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