Issue Position: Social Securty & Medicare

Issue Position

Social Security is one of our greatest achievements of the last century, and a contract between generations that we must honor. However, the current system is threatened because it does not cope with ongoing demographic changes. As our population ages, we need to support those seniors that paid into the system and ensure that future generations also benefit. That's why we need to eliminate the payroll tax cap. Today, someone who makes $1 million a year pays the same amount into Social Security as someone who makes $120,000. That's not right. Eliminating the payroll tax cap will cover nearly all of the Social Security funding gap, and ensure that Social Security is solvent for decades to come.

Medicare is a critical resource for millions of Americans, including my parents. In fact, they wouldn't be able to pay for their medicine without it. Current estimates indicate that Medicare funds will be exhausted by 2030; we must be vigilant in ensuring this does not happen. While we need to increase revenues to keep Medicare sustainable, that alone is not enough. We also need to work to lower the costs of healthcare, and the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction. In Congress I will fight for a two-step plan to ensure the long-term success of Medicare:

Reducing unnecessary and often harmful use of services by moving away from a Fee-for-Service model of healthcare treatment;
Increasing the use of preventative care for better care for patients while also decreasing the costs of emergency care.

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