Issue Position: Strengthening Medicare and Protecting Social Security

Issue Position

What Matters to Michael: supporting our seniors, and making healthcare affordable for all Americans.

Before Medicare, nearly half of America's retirees were uninsured. Today, Medicare provides access to meaningful health coverage for more than 45 million seniors. As a congressman, Michael will work to preserve and strengthen Medicare so that beneficiaries today -- and in the future -- will never worry about how to pay for basic healthcare. Medicare's continued viability requires fiscally responsible reforms. Michael will support such reforms, as well as initiatives to make prescription drugs more affordable for all Americans, including greater accessibility to generic drugs and the closing of the Medicare Part D "donut hole."

Michael will also work to protect Social Security. For more than 75 years, Social Security has been a testament to one of America's greatest periods of determination and resilience. As Americans struggled through the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt worked with Congress and together they enacted Social Security to provide vital benefits to retirees, widows and people with disabilities. Fifty-five million Americans currently receive Social Security benefits. Michael supports honest dialogue regarding Social Security in order to protect this essential program, without privatization, and to make it viable for generations to come.

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