August 23, 2018

The Honorable Matt Cartwright
c/o Cartwright for Congress
P.O. Box 414
Scranton, PA 18501

Dear Congressman Cartwright:

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, on behalf of its millions of members and supporters, including 89,088 in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, enthusiastically endorses your 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 a member of the Committee on Appropriations, you are a key ally in the effort to ensure the availability to seniors of conveniently located and adequately staffed Social Security field offices.  The 10,000 seniors turning 65 every day and filing for Social Security and Medicare benefits depend on these offices.  We can depend on you to protect the retirement and health security of current and future older Americans.  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.  And importantly, you oppose any lowering of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) on Social Security benefits.

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.  You have voted consistently to strengthen Medicare and to make prescription drug costs more affordable while strongly opposing efforts to weaken Medicare by turning it into a premium-subsidy voucher program.  Seniors would benefit greatly from your legislation to extend Medicare coverage to audiology services.  You also oppose 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, and 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