Tag Archives for Medicare

Susan Sweet Takes the Reins of AARP’s Community Educational Initiative

Published in Pawtucket Times, July 11, 2013 

            Accepting the challenge offered by organizers of Rhode Island AARP’s “You’ve Earned a Say”, veteran advocate and organizer, Susan L. Sweet, has come out of semi-retirement, stepping to the plate to coordinate a series of “community conversations”  to continue efforts of promoting dialogue throughout the OceanState on the future of Social Security and Medicare.

             After years of paying into Medicare and Social Security, AARP, a Washington, D.C.-based group representing 40 million Americans, believes that age 50 plus aging baby boomers and older persons deserve a voice in the Inside the Beltway debates that impacts their future retirement years.  “You’ve Earned a Say” is a AARP-led national conversation committed to providing people with critical information about the domestic policy proposals being debated in Congress — simply put without the political jargon and spin.

             Regional events to be held in Warwick, Pawtucket and elsewhere – free and open to all — will be scheduled throughout the summer into the fall as Congress and  President Barack Obama begin to weigh in on policy changes for these critical domestic programs.

             “Susan has a remarkable knack for encouraging people to become actively engaged in matters that deserve public attention and involvement,” said AARP State Director Kathleen Connell. “We are fortunate that she has agreed to take this on. She will bring great energy to AARP’s ‘You’ve Earned a Say’ outreach and engagement efforts. The fate of Social Security and Medicare is important to all Rhode Islanders and we hope many will take part in our forums. Working with our staff and other AARP volunteers, Susan will be a tremendous asset. She is a force of nature.”   After seeing her in action for over 18 years this columnist agrees.

             A veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement and the War on Poverty, Sweet joined the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) in 1972, where she founded and led numerous Rhode Island Division of Women’s programs.  She worked with the General Assembly to secure the first state funding for Domestic Violence Shelters.  While at the DCA, she also wrote a grant, funded by federal dollars, to establish community health centers throughout the state.

             In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, Sweet was Associate Director of the R. I. Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA), creating and developing a number of award winning programs, including the RI Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Elderly Program, popularly known as RIPAE.  She initiated a first in the nation statewide Elder Housing Security program and various legislative and programmatic initiatives to assist elders in the state.

             Sweet, a Rumford resident, earned the monikor as the mother of RIPAE by initiating, planning, organizing, managing and finally directing the state program that would ultimately assist 32,000 Rhode Island  limited income seniors with state co-payment assistance for prescription drugs. After leaving the DEA, three attempts were made by sitting governors (both Independent and Republican) to eliminate the program and the advocate led all three successful efforts to restore RIPAE funding in the state budget.

             After retiring as DEA’s Associate Director in 2000, Sweet has been a consultant and lobbyist on Smith Hill for nonprofit agencies and an advocate for vulnerable populations and issues such as immigrants, domestic violence, homeless and seniors. Her clients have included the Senior Centers Directors Association, the Alliance for Better Long Term Care, International Institute, the Coalition Against Domestic Violence and others.

             On a personal note, Sweet, 72, cares for five adopted cats, all abandoned or abused, putters in her large backyard garden, spends time with two children and two grandchildren.  Being an expert on Roman history she reads many tomes on that era, and on world archeology and history.

Social Security on the Chopping Block

               Democratic President Obama and a Democrat-controlled Senate and a GOP House of Representatives are trying to reach a budget deal in the coming months. President Obama has proposed a change that would slash $127 billion from Social Security benefits over the next ten years, hurting many older beneficiaries who are already living on very tight budgets stretched far to thin by costly prescriptions, rising utilities, and increased health care costs. AARP and other aging groups are pushing hard against these cuts, mobilizing their troops to oppose. 

             Social Security is a self-financed program, not a piggy bank for deficit reduction, noting that aging baby boomers and seniors have paid into this pension program their entire working lives.  According to AARP polls, older Americans expect their elected representatives in Washington to fiscally secure Social Security for future generations and keep the promise Congress made 78 years ago: that this retirement program would provide a financial safety network in their later years.

             According to Sweet, the proposed chained CPI is a flawed policy that will hit Social Security beneficiaries in their pocketbook. Each year the Social Security Administration (SSA) makes the determination, based on market prices, whether to adjust the Social Security payment to beneficiaries and, if so, by how much.  The chained CPI is a formula that assumes that people will simply buy cheaper products.  “But that is not the case for seniors, whose greatest expenses are health care, utilities and other costs that can’t often be replaced,” So, the chained CPI is just a term that means that the average senior will lose more than $2,000 in the next 10 years and even more after that.  It also means that people reaching retirement age and/or planning for retirement will have even more of a reduction.

             Furthermore, Sweet finds it extremely disappointing that a Democrat President would offer, as an opening gambit in the budget process, a reduction in Social Security benefits by using a new and inappropriate method for computing Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLAs).  In fact, Social Security, a program that pays for itself and has never run a deficit, should not be used to offset deficits in other programs. We should be talking about how to strengthen the program, not reducing it, she states.

 State Pension Changes Hits Retirees, Too

             But, with Social Security COLA cuts looming if Congress takes legislative action to endorse chained CPIs, aging baby boomers in the OceanState who will shortly retire or those already receiving their municipal or state pension checks will see less retirement income because of actions of the Rhode Island General Assembly.

                 “Any additional loss of retirement income is certainly a concern for public employees who, as a result of the 2011 slashes in their promised retirement income,” said AARP’s Connell. “Lawmakers need to understand that there are earned benefits. People plan their retirement based on what they are told they can count on – whether it is a public or private pension, or Social Security. As we have said for the past two years, Congress and the President should not address the deficit by pursuing harmful cuts to Social Security and Medicare.” 

             Sweet agrees stating that “Rhode Island was at the very front of the attack on older folks with an extraordinary coup which stripped public service retirees and workers of hard earned compensation for their work. They called it “pension reform”, but that is not what it was.  Everyone knows that it is not fair to change the rules in the middle of the game and certainly not after the game is over.  But that is what is happening around the country, in private and public employment.”

             Social Security and other pensions are not “entitlement programs” but more like insurance programs that you pay into with the promise and expectation of a certain coverage, notes Sweet. The aging advocate asks: “Should the insurance company be allowed to change the benefits upon payout? Should government (state or federal) cut benefits to retirees absent the most pressing of circumstances?”

             But, certainly in the case of Social Security, there is no emergency, but rather a timely need to insure that the program can continue to fulfill its mission, she says.

             Robert A. Walsh, Jr., Executive Director of NEA, National Education Association Rhode Island, representing 12,000 members in education and in city and state government, refers to the recalculation of COLAs by using chained CPIs as “voodoo economics.”  While supporters of this recalculation policy note it reins in Social Security costs, they should at least be honest about the fact that it personally hits the retiree financially, right in their checks, he says.  “If you’re going to cut people’s COLAs, just be honest about it,” he says.

             Many of Walsh’s union members only receive their city or state pension as they are not eligible for Social Security benefits. People retired with certain expectations [as to what retirement income they had] and to make pension changes after they retire is patently unfair, says Walsh, noting they had no opportunity to plan for the decreased income.

             Throughout the nation there is a growing movement of aging baby boomers and seniors, fueled by AARP’s educational efforts, who tell Congress to simply  “Leave Social Security Alone”.  Strengthen it for future generations, they say.

             Sweet and millions of others tell Washington politicians that “Social Security is not a cookie jar to fund other programs.”   Sweet says you can make this known to Rhode Island’s Congressional Delegation, Senators Reed and Whitehouse, Representatives Cicciline and Langevin, by attending the upcoming “community conversations.”  Support their position opposing the change in the COLA and urge them to support Social Security by leaving it out of any budget deal, she urges. 

             Herb Weiss LRI ’12 is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers health care, aging and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com

Aging Groups Consider Obama’s Fiscal 2014 Budget Proposal a “Mixed Bag”

Published in Woonsocket Call, April 21, 2013

President Barack Obama, missing the federal mandated budget submission deadline by over two month, finally unveils his fiscal blueprint on April 10, giving Capitol Hill a peek as to how he would fund the nation’s federal agencies, programs and services.

The President proposed a $3.8 trillion budget plan for fiscal 2014, that seeks to slash the huge federal deficit by a net $600 billion over 10 years, raises taxes on the wealthy, and puts the breaks to rising costs of two very popular senior programs, Social Security and Medicare.

Senior groups call President Obama’s the first budget proposal of his second presidential term, a “mixed bag.” His fiscal blueprint would eliminate the draconian cuts of the sequester, that is the arbitrary, across the board cuts Congress imposed this year. However, Obama seeks to reduce the federal deficit by calling for another $200 billion in cuts to discretionary programs – half from defense programs and half from domestic programs.

Braking the Rising Costs of Social Security Despite the Social Security Trustee’s 2012 Annual Report that the entitlement program has the financial resources to pay all benefits through 2033 (see my June 1, 2012 Commentary in Pawtucket Times), Social Security benefits are targeted in the recently released budget plan for substantial cuts by adopting the “chained” consumer price index (CPI) for the purpose of calculating Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), the Obama Administration sees this switch as “a technical adjustment.” Aging group warn that using the “chained” CPI will substantially reduce the Social Security benefits of current and future beneficiaries. “If it is adopted, a typical 65 year-old would see an immediate decrease of about $130 per year in Social Security benefits. At age 95, the same senior would face a 9.2 percent reduction—almost $1,400 per year,” notes NCPSSM.

While all beneficiaries will feel the impact of this change, its effect will be greatest on those who draw benefits at earlier ages (e.g., military retirees, disabled veterans and workers) and those who live the longest, says NCPSSM, especially “women who have outlived their other sources of income, have depleted their assets, and rely on Social Security as their only lifeline to financial stability.”.

With Republican Congressional lawmakers generally supportive of Obama’s push to rein in Social Security costs, through the use of the “chained” CPI, liberal Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. David Cicilline, representing Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, strongly oppose the President or any Congressional efforts to cut Social Security to lower the nation’s federal deficit.

Rep. Cicilline calls for reforming the nation’s tax code by ending subsidies for “Big Oil,” along with “making responsible target spending cuts,” to slash the nation’s huge federal deficit .

AARP Poll Says, Keep Your Hands Off Social Security
In a statement, AARP Executive Vice President Nancy A. LeaMond, quickly reacted to the Democratic President’s efforts to use the “chained” CPI to control rising Social Security program costs.

While AARP recognizes the need for the President and Congress to confront budget challenges facing the nation, the nation’s largest aging advocacy group calls for “responsible solutions, not harmful proposals” that would hurt older beneficiaries or threaten the retirement security of the generations that follow, says LeaMond.

LeaMond said, “AARP is deeply dismayed that President Obama would propose cutting the benefits of current and future Social Security recipients, including children, widows, veterans and people with disabilities, to reduce the deficit. Social Security is a self-financed program that doesn’t contribute to the deficit, so it shouldn’t be cut to reduce it.”

AARP’s polls indicated that older Americans, across the political spectrum, agree with nonprofit group’s opposition to the “chained” CPI. LeaMond, notes. The recently released national survey found that “fully 84% of voters age 50 and over oppose cutting Social Security benefits to reduce the deficit.”

“Instead of making harmful cuts to Medicare or shifting additional costs onto beneficiaries, we need to look for savings throughout the health care system, including Medicare,” suggests LeaMond. She says that also “lowering the costs of prescription drugs, innovations that promote better care, reward improved outcomes and make health care programs more efficient and less wasteful have the potential to hold down systemic high health care costs, including costs in Medicare.”

Finally, LeaMond adds, “We know that prescription drugs are one of the key drivers of escalating health care costs, so we appreciate the President’s inclusion of proposals to find savings in lower drug costs. And we applaud his plan to accelerate closure of the ‘donut hole’ in Medicare Part D by 2015, which would reduce seniors’ often burdensome out-of-pocket health care expenses.”

A Snap Shot of Other Aging Budget Issues
Howard Bedlin, Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy at the National Council on Aging (NCOA), in a written statement calls Obama’s budget proposal a “mixed-bag” when it comes to seniors.”

Bedlin acknowledges that the recently released Obama budget eliminates the sequester cuts to critical programs like Meals on Wheels and other Older Americans Act services, elderly housing, and other vital senior services. “It is unfortunate that cuts are proposed for low-income energy assistance and senior job training and placement programs,” he says.
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According to Bedlin, the President’s budget also protects SNAP (Food Stamps) and Medicaid, in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts approved in the Republican-controlled House budget proposal. “Cuts in Medicaid would be devastating to the millions of vulnerable seniors who rely on the program for long-term care and Medicare low-income protections,” he says.
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Meanwhile, a major concern for NCOA with the President’s budget surrounds Medicare and Social Security. While the organization supports some of the Medicare reductions, the proposed $370 billion in additional cuts are “excessive and several will harm” beneficiaries (more than half having incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line), says Bedlin, these cuts in addition to the $716 billion in Medicare cuts under health reform and significant reductions in spending growth over the past three years.

Also, the proposed new home health co-payment will fall primarily on lower-income older women with multiple chronic health conditions, and lead to premature nursing home placement, predicts Bedlin. “The proposed increase in the Medicare Part B deductible would be especially harmful and unaffordable to millions of seniors with incomes just above the federal poverty line ($958 per month),” he says.

Finally, Bedlin notes that the proposed Medigap surcharge would penalize seniors for decisions made by their doctors, cause major market disruption, and seriously confuse many current policy holders. The proposal to further increase Medicare premiums based on income could result in those with incomes of about $47,000 being forced to pay more.

NCOA joined AARP and NCPSSM and virtually every other national aging organization in opposing the President’s proposal to cut the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) through the use of a “chained” CPI.

A Final Note… With Obama’s proposed budget now thrown in the ring with the House and Senate budgets already drafted and voted on, will Congressional gridlock keep the Democratic President, the GOP-Controlled House and Democratic Senate from working together to hammer out a consensus, bipartisan compromise? Only time will tell if elected lawmakers clearly get the message from the American people, “put the people first and not your political party.”

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer covering aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Older Voters Must Rise Above Negative Campaign Advertising

Published on November 2, 2012, Pawtucket Times           

            With the 1st Congressional seat up for grabs, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Democratic Congressional Committee (DCCC) have the OceanState on their radar screen, hoping to sway voters to their chosen candidates. Political funds coming from these “Inside the Beltway” political groups come because of the tightness of the race and these committees are picking up the tabs for large blocks of local television advertising to mount concentrated negative ad campaigns.    According to WPRI 12, NRCC is buying $280,000 in advertising compared to the DCCC’s $315,000.

t’s a Close Call

                According to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll, this television station reported last Tuesday that David Cicilline, the incumbent Democratic Congressman has a “razor thin” lead of only 1-point between him (43%)  and his independent Republican Challenger, Brendan Doherty, (42%) just one week before next Tuesday’s election.  The pollsters say that independent Candidate David Vogel’s 6% following with 8% undecided make this election race just too close to call.  This poll was based on interviews with 300 registered voters in the First Congressional District.

              With polls showing the race becoming a dead heat, both Democrats and Republicans are taking their gloves off. 

            Freshman Congressman Cicilline’s 30-second ad seeks to firmly tie the GOP Congressional Candidate, Doherty to the House Republican leadership, who want to privatize Social Security, derail ObamaCare, and repackage Medicare.  

            Cicilline campaign ads have questioned his Republican challenger’s ability to represent his constituency in a Republican-controlled House, captured by a radical Tea Party who philosophically opposes political compromise.  Doherty has vehemently denied this, calling himself a “centralist,” “independent thinker,” one who can work with those across the aisle.

            Meanwhile, according to the Providence Journal, the House Majority Political Action Committee, a Democratic “super Pac,” plans to spend $75,000 on direct-mail flyers to oppose GOP’s Doherty’s efforts to go to Congress.  This follows on the heels of the Rhode Island GOP’s mailing of negative campaign materials attacking the Cicilline’s integrity, his work as a criminal defense attorney and his statements about the ffiscal health of his City as he left office. 

             An October 30, 2012 posting of “On Politics with Ian Donnis and Scott MacKay,” gives their political junkie readers insight into Doherty’s move to play “good cop, bad cop” in his advertising playbook.  Not so surprising with his law enforcement background in the waning days of his first political campaign.  

 A Tale of Two 30-Second Ads

             Highly-regarded Investigative writers Donnis and MacKay reveal that while on the same day that the NRCC savagely attacked Cicilline in a 30-second spot titled “Set Free,” for being a criminal defense attorney who “represented child predators, murders, and violent attackers”, while Doherty ran his own political ad, paid for by his Doherty for Congress, opposing Washington attack ads and mudslinging.     

              Donnis and MacKay, whose Commentaries are reported on the Rhode Island Public Radio, also noted in their blog that the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact found that Cicilline, who served in the Rhode Island General Assembly for four terms, supported a crime bill as a state representative “contrary to the message being offered in part by the NRCC.”

             In Doherty’s 30-second spot, “What is Right,” the GOP Challenger says, “Washington has gotten so bad they will say just about anything whether it is true or not.”  Doherty’s wife, Michelle responds: “People are so tired of that,” adding “We can’t begin to solve our problems until we get rid of that kind of stuff.”

             Doherty, the former Colonel of the Rhode Island State Police who is running in his first political race, replied: “I agree.  She is always right.”  He goes on to pledge to create jobs, lower the national debt and to support the Social Security and Medicare programs.

             Why approve a message that Rhode Island voters are tired of being misinformed by those in Washington when you don’t stand up and tell the NRCC to shelf their negative ad campaign?  

             Scott Davis, who lives on the East Side of Providence and is a neighbor of Cicilline, disagrees with the NRCC’s attempt to savagely attack the Democratic Congressman for choosing to defend criminals in his law practice, over a decade ago.  

             Davis states, “My understanding is that Cicilline focused primarily on immigration law.  In any event, to pass judgment on him for defending criminals is to question the foundation of our judicial system as mandated in our constitution,” he said.

             According to Davis, “Defending criminals protects the rights of the wrongfully accused and only the best lawyers have the fortitude to make the moral separation necessary to ensure justice.”

             “What I find far more troubling is with the NRCC attacking the Congressman because of his clients with Doherty’s apparent blessings,” says the owner of Rhode Island Antiques Mall.  “The former law officer demonstrates that apparently he either doesn’t understand or agree with the basic elements of a democracy, yet he’s asking us to allow him to represent us in the running of ours.”

              Of course, occasionally we’ve read about an innocent person who spends years in jail only to later be released because of new evidence. When this it oftentimes makes headlines in local or national publications.  Or perhaps investigative shows like CBS’s 60 Minutes or Dateline NBC, might detail particular cases.  

             According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1973, 141 people in 26 states were released from death row with evidence of their innocence.  I wonder how many of these “innocent” individuals were profiled in a negative 30-second spot to attack a political candidate.  

             As the WPRI 12 poll reflects in the 1st Congressional District, most of the voters have already aligned themselves to either Cicilline or Doherty with Vogel being the potential spoiler.  The election will go to the candidate who can bring home the uncommitted independent voter in the remaining final days of the campaign.

 Taking the Power Back from Political Candidates

             Historically, nationwide aging baby boomers and seniors have played a major role in electing political candidates, for they have consistently voted in larger percentages than other age groups.  This year the political fate of Cicilline and Doherty may well rest on these voters.

             By now, political candidates have mailed campaign literature to the voters of the 1st Congressional District hoping to bring home their final political message to influence their votes.  Combine this with the mudslinging and negative campaigning, the political advisors of both candidates will now look to see if the polls move.

             For older voters it’s now more important than ever to read between the lines in the campaign literature you receive or the television ads that you watch.  An educated voter who strives to understand the multitude of domestic and foreign issues that must be addressed by the next Congress will make his or her own decision as to whom they support, rather than be influenced by negative 30-second ads or campaign materials paid for by Washington, DC-based political groups.  

             It’s time for aging baby boomers and seniors to rise above negative campaigning and political innuendos being slung by the political candidates, by turning away from calculated misinformation they want to feed you. Base your vote at your polling site on the facts, yes, just the plain facts. 

             Herb Weiss, LRI ’12,  is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.