Letter: Congress must keep Medicare as is

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that he would protect Social Security and Medicare from any attempts to weaken those earned-benefit programs. In New Hampshire Trump said, “It’s not fair to the people who have been paying in for years” and in Milwaukee he declared: “We’re going to save your Social Security and we’re going to save your Medicare.”

Some in Congress would like to see Medicare turned into a voucher system with reduced benefits (sometimes called “premium support”) but this is fundamentally against President Trump’s platform and would drastically impact the 1 million South Carolina residents now receiving Medicare benefits. This type of change will mean reduced access to providers and increased out-of-pocket costs. But, too many of our state’s citizens are at the poverty line and are unable to afford the higher rates involved with a voucher-type program.

We have paid into these earned-benefit plans throughout our working lives and call upon our members of Congress to oppose any change to traditional Medicare. This is a program that has dignified America’s seniors and its continuance must be one of Congress’s highest priorities.

We ask our Congressional representatives to oppose voucherization of traditional Medicare and uphold the program that 57 million senior Americans rely on for their health care. We ask that they defend President Lyndon Johnson’s promise: “Older citizens will no longer have to fear that illness will wipe out their savings, eat up their income, and destroy lifelong hope of dignity and independence.”

This story was originally published February 23, 2017 at 8:24 PM with the headline "Letter: Congress must keep Medicare as is."