This is the second my election diary series, sharing information about Matt Zeller, Democrat for US House in my home district, NY-29.
Last week, Zeller shared his plan for Creating Jobs in Western New York here
As Matt has been meeting and introducing himself to the residents of our district, the issues faced today by Seniors have been a major topic of discussion and voter questions. On Tuesday, Matt and his opponent Tom Reed had a tele-debate sponsored by AARP. As you can imagine, Social Security was a featured topic.
How would a Representative Matt Zeller see his responsibility to Seniors, and what has he learned, and heard from Seniors themselves, about what Western New York's Seniors are facing today?
For some, they are our parents, for others our grandmas and grandpas, but collectively, they are the people who made our lives comfortable as children, grandchildren, and Americans possible. Therefore, it is our government’s solemn duty to thank them for all they have given us, by allowing them the freedom to enjoy their golden years for once doing what they want because they spent so long putting our needs first.
For too many of our seniors, that is no longer an option. For some, they worked their whole lives paying into a pension that dried up when their former company declared bankruptcy simply to get out from underneath their responsibilities. For others, they relied on investing in the stock market to ensure a comfortable retirement, only to watch it fade before their eyes during the recessions of the last decade. Still others were forced into early retirement by a company ridding itself of the wisdom that comes with experience, in exchange for the profit that came with shipping their job overseas.
Whatever the cause, the simple fact is that our country has not done enough to take care of the people who took care of us, but if I am elected to Congress, I promise I will work tirelessly to make sure our government shows them the gratitude they deserve.
Matt, you got a brief chance to talk about Social Security yesterday on the AARP tele-debate. Can you take us further into how you'd work to solve the concerns we all have about its long-term health as a program?
Social Security is a Sacred Trust – which is why I am fully committed to the safety net that for far too many of our seniors is the difference between subsistence and poverty. Keeping Social Security solvent has to be one of our top priorities, but I am unequivocally opposed to some of the solutions put out there by many politicians. Privatizing Social Security amounts to little more than gambling your retirement on the stock market, a move that in the wake of the 2008 stock market crash would have left the vast majority of people with no retirement to speak of at all. Means testing is another popular solution I am wholly opposed to, and is just a fancy way of saying that some Washington bureaucrat will be in charge of determining whether you get the money you’ve paid into the system your whole life. Both of these ideas break that trust, and we as Americans cannot stand for any policy that would.
The solution is a simple one, yet a compromise I believe everyone can agree with. Currently, wages after a certain yearly income (generally around $100,000) are exempt from the payroll tax that funds Social Security. In 2008, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that by just removing that cap, and increasing the benefits those affected would receive, our nation can nearly fully close the financing gap our country now faces.
Of course, Social Security isn't the only challenge. Access to quality affordable medical care is critical. What have you learned about the problems of Medicare today? What would your priorities be to tackle them? And where does the Affordable Health Care for America Act fit into the picture?
Restore the Bond between Medicare and Physicians – We are seeing more and more physicians doing something that was once nearly unthinkable: declining to accept Medicare beneficiaries. At the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, we were taught to ask ourselves what the reason for a problem was, and that once you’ve figured that out, the rest is simple. That same lesson applies here. In the past, Medicare worked so well because the government had the credibility to create a bond of trust between doctors and the program, asking them to accept that government would pay them fairly and expediently in exchange for the best care they could provide. I believe the reason for the decline is because the government has broken that trust by reducing and prolonging Medicare reimbursements to physicians.
While I do not agree with the new healthcare bill in its entirety, I do think it will do some things that will really go a long way towards helping seniors like paying for annual wellness visits, closing the Medicare Doughnut Hole, and increasing reimbursements for primary care physicians. Those are all great things, but to really tackle the problem, we need to increase the efficiency in which those increased reimbursements get paid out, and I think standardizing electronic medical records would make that possible.
Ending Medicare Fraud and Abuse – Millions of seniors depend on Medicare to get the treatments and medicine they need, and doctors rely on timely reimbursements to provide that care. We cannot let the criminal actions of a few punish the many beneficiaries and physicians who play by the rules. No one is completely certain how much Medicare fraud costs this country, but if you’re a senior who can’t find someone to treat you, or a doctor waiting on your check from the government, you have very clear picture just how damaging it can be.
Firstly, I’d like to applaud the recent federal budget for recognizing just how big a problem Medicare Fraud is, by including a record $1.6 Billion for fighting waste, fraud, and other improper payments.
More can always be done though, and I think the best solution would be a policy of zero tolerance towards companies who commit Medicare fraud, simply put: One strike and you’re out. Hanging the penalty of exiling a company from the program over their heads should make companies think twice before trying to defraud the taxpayers. In years past, a company could just create little subsidiaries that exist solely to absorb the penalty if they got caught. We must go to great lengths to ensure that the parent companies, rather than just their shell corporations, are the ones who pay the true penalty.
Matt Zeller continues to travel across our region meeting voters, listening to their stories, and answering questions. You can catch him at one of the many local events, a schedule is on his Events page at ZellerForCongress.com
You can also contact Matt Zeller for Congress by:
Phone: (585) 869-5171
Email: info@zellerforcongress.com
Matt's Facebook page
And follow Matt on Twitter: @ZellerNY29
And of course you can donate to help Matt Zeller's campaign on his page at ActBlue