Issue Position: Advocate for New Jersey Seniors

Issue Position

Congressman Pallone has dedicated his career to ensuring that seniors have access to affordable health care options and the safety-nets they need to age with dignity and respect. He is committed to making sure Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security continue to provide low-cost, high-quality health care and the financial benefits earned from a life-time of hard work.

Obamacare - The Affordable Care Act

Congressman Pallone was one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act. Some of the benefits to seniors in the law are:

* Reduces prescription drug costs. The health care law provides a 50% discount on brand-name drugs for seniors in the Medicare Part D "donut hole' coverage gap and completely closes the donut hole by 2020.

* Provides free Medicare coverage of key preventive services, such as mammograms and colonoscopies.

* Provides a free Annual Wellness Visit under Medicare, for the first time.

* Strengthens Medicare and extends the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund. The law's reforms strengthen solvency by squeezing waste out of the system and making it more efficient, without reducing benefits.

* Provides new tools to crack down on fraud in Medicare, and since then a joint anti-Medicare fraud task force of HHS and the Department of Justice have recovered unprecedented levels totaling over $4 billion dollars.

* Helps seniors remain at home and stay out of nursing homes, with the new Community First Choice Option, allowing states to offer home-based services to disabled individuals through Medicaid rather than institutional care.

Medicare Payment reform

Enacted in 1997 as part of the "Balanced Budget Act," the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) has been a source of continued concern for Medicare beneficiaries, as well as the doctors who serve them. Long recognized as an imperfect solution that rewards quantity of services rather than the quality of care, Congressman Pallone has repeatedly voted in favor of implementing a temporary "doc fix" to prevent the Medicare reimbursement rate cuts that resulted from the flawed formula. Yet he remains increasingly concerned that Congress continues to address this issue on a case-by-case basis, in some instances avoiding the cuts in 3-month increments, resulting in a price tag that has grown each year. A permanent solution is critical to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities continue to have access to their doctors, and that doctors in Medicare won't face uncertainty year-to-year about their payment rates. That is why he is working aggressively with his colleagues from both sides of the aisle to address this issue in a permanent way. In fact, the Subcommittee on Health, which he is the senior Democrat on, unanimously passed a bill in July and the Congressman will work to pass final legislation in the House this fall.

Fighting those who would Privatize Social Security

For many seniors, Social Security is the only financial security in unstable economic times. That is why, when President George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans pushed a risky Social Security privatization plan and cuts in 2005 and turn seniors' benefits over to the whims of Wall Street, Congressman Pallone fought aggressively to block their efforts.

Changing the Social Security Coast of Living Adjustment (COLA)

As Congress works together to reduce the deficit in a responsible and balanced manner, Congressman Pallone believes it is critically important that we preserve Social Security and protect some of our most vulnerable populations from cuts in benefits. To that end, any reforms considered by Congress should aim to strengthen the program for current beneficiaries and extend its long-term solvency for future generations. That is why he has expressed his concern publically opposing the President's proposal to move the cost of living formula to chained-CPI.

"Our senior citizens built this country and made it great. It is the obligation of every elected official in Washington to ensure that the benefits that were promised to our seniors -- benefits they worked their entire lives for and planned their retirements around -- are protected. That is what I have done my entire career, and what I would continue to do in the United State Senate."

-Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.

Republican Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid

Since Republicans took the Majority in 2011, Congressman Pallone has consistently voted each year against Republican efforts to end the Medicare guarantee and completely gut the Medicaid program.

This Republican plan would:

* Increase out-of-pocket health care costs for the typical senior by more than $6,000.

* Put seniors at the mercy of private insurance companies by turning the benefit into a voucher program.

* Turn Medicaid into block grants that could deny vulnerable seniors and the disabled access to long-term care and force deep cuts in quality and safety in nursing homes, leaving more seniors at risk of elder abuse and neglect.

* It also repealed the Affordable Care Act and its added benefits to seniors.

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