August 7, 2018

The Honorable Richard E. Neal

c/o Richard E. Neal for Congress Committee
P.O. Box 718
Springfield, MA  01101-0718

Dear Congressman Neal:

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, on behalf of its millions of members and supporters, including 5,365 residing in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District, enthusiastically endorses your re-nomination and re-election to the United States House of Representatives.  You earned the endorsement of the National Committee because you understand and support the critical roles that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid play in the retirement and health security of our nation’s older citizens and their families.  Our nation needs your continued leadership, vision and determination to fight for working families and older Americans.

As the Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, you are a key ally in the effort to serve the needs of seniors and their families.  You appreciate that Social Security benefits are modest, on average only $15,456 annually and even lower for women who most often have their working careers interrupted for family caregiving.  You appreciate, too, that Social Security benefits are earned and that Social Security has not contributed one dime to the nation’s debt.  You are among the sponsors of the Social Security 2100 Act, legislation extending the solvency of Social Security for 75 years, cutting taxes on Social Security benefits, and making other major benefit improvements.

You recognize, too, that Medicare is crucial to the health of older Americans, many of whom cannot afford higher out-of-pocket costs:  One-half of all Medicare beneficiaries had incomes below $26,200 per person in 2016.  Most recently you introduced “The Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs for Seniors Act,” to make permanent limits on the growth of consumer out-of-pocket spending in the Medicare Part D program. This proposal once enacted will save Medicare beneficiaries billions of dollars annually on prescription drugs. You also are opposing proposals to cut Medicaid by $1.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2019, recognizing that cuts of this magnitude serve only to make it more difficult for seniors to access long-term care.

Your stalwart support of efforts to ensure the solvency of the Social Security and the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust funds, to provide adequate funding to Medicaid, to appropriate fully the Social Security Administration budget, to establish a meaningful Medicare prescription drug program, and your unflagging opposition to Social Security and Medicare privatization schemes are a matter of record, and National Committee members and supporters want you in the

United States House of Representatives to continue protecting and enhancing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – the pillars necessary to a good quality of life for Americans of all ages.

There is no membership in the nation more aware or active politically than the men and women who proudly are associated with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.  National Committee members know they can continue to count on you in the United States House of Representatives!

Sincerely,

Max Richtman
President & CEO
Chairman, NCPSSM-PAC Board of Directors