Older Americans
Safeguarding Social Security and Medicare, and Fulfilling Our Commitments to Senior Citizens
Senator Reed is working to bring down the high cost of living for older Americans and ensure they have a secure retirement by protecting the programs that they paid into, like Social Security and Medicare. He is also working to ensure every American has access to safe, effective, and affordable prescription medications.
To protect patients from high out-of-pocket costs, Senator Reed helped include provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act to lower the prices seniors pay at the pharmacy counter. This includes a $2,100 out-of-pocket cap on prescription drug costs in Medicare Part D and a $35 monthly cap on insulin co-pays in Medicare.
Reed also cosponsored the SMART Prices Act to build on this progress by strengthening Medicare’s ability to use bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower prices and force the Trump Administration to use its bulk purchasing power negotiating authority to lower the prices of the most commonly used prescription drugs that older Americans rely on.
Senator Reed is committed to ensuring that Social Security remains strong and viable. Today, over 230,000 Rhode Islanders receive Social Security benefits. Throughout his career, Reed has repeatedly voted to protect Social Security and strongly opposes efforts to privatize it. He successfully fought efforts to use the Chained CPI to determine cost-of-living adjustments, which would have cut Social Security benefits.
Senator Reed vigorously opposed the Republicans’ so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which guts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), cutting more than one trillion in Medicaid funds and kicking roughly 15 million Americans off of their health care, including more than 40,000 Rhode Islanders. Medicaid provides critical long term and nursing home care to seniors.
Senator Reed also supports programs that allow older Americans to maintain their independence and contribute to their communities, like home-delivered meals initiatives, the Senior Community Service Employment program, and the Section 202 Housing for the Elderly program, which provides affordable housing options for certain low-income seniors.
KEY PRIORITIES & ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Helped pass legislation giving the federal government the authority to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry to lower drug prices with Medicare for the first time in history, saving seniors and taxpayers billions of dollars.
- Supported efforts to ensure that the Social Security Administration (SSA) receives the resources necessary to help process claims more rapidly and reduce backlogs in the claims determination process.
- Delivered billions of dollars for Older Americans Act programs, including programs to support vaccine outreach and coordination, address social isolation, provide family caregiver support, and offer nutrition support to older Americans through programs like Meals on Wheels.
- Worked with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to ensure that Rhode Island’s hospitals receive fair reimbursements for treating Medicare patients.
- Helped close the Medicare Part D prescription drug “doughnut hole,” which left seniors without coverage for a large portion of their prescription drug costs and backed provisions of the ACA to provide Medicare beneficiaries with free preventive services, like vaccines and cancer screenings.
- Led efforts to crackdown on scammers who target older Americans, including introducing the Crypto ATM Fraud Prevention Act.
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Helped pass legislation finally ending the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision (GPO/WEP) loopholes that cut Social Security benefits for state and local workers and their spouses.