Signed into law 58 years ago, Medicare revolutionized health care for America’s seniors. It cut the number of uninsured older Americans to near zero. It lowered costs, improved the quality of care and increased life expectancy.
Medicare wasn’t, and isn’t, perfect. Its journey includes reforms made under Democratic and Republican presidents, President Bush, President Obama – and President Biden just last year – to continue to strengthen coverage and lower costs.
As a result, Medicare is a resounding, bipartisan success with an estimated 17% of the state, including tens of thousands of Southwest Coloradans, enrolled into Medicare today. So why is it under attack in Washington?
To answer that question, we can look to the example set by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of the 3rd Congressional District. Last year, Boebert supported the Republican Study Committee’s budget to gut Medicare.
As an organization that advocates for older Coloradans, we are calling on Boebert to listen to her constituents in the 3rd Congressional District – the Colorado district with the highest number of seniors in the state.
The plan Boebert supports to gut Medicare is a disaster. It creates more bureaucracy by turning Medicare into a means-tested voucher program, which would make it harder for seniors to access their benefits. The plan also increases the age of eligibility for Medicare, which would put health care coverage out of reach for millions of seniors.
To make matters worse, Boebert is dishonest about her record. She tried to hide her support for this proposal by stripping any mention of it from her website. She also tried to silence her critics by threatening to sue an organization that launched an advocacy campaign to hold her accountable.
Boebert also voted against lowering the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare through the Inflation Reduction Act and falsely claimed this legislation would raise costs. In reality, Coloradans are already seeing lower out-of-pocket costs on dozens of drugs.
Boebert’s position was aligned with the biggest drug companies who are now fighting tooth and nail to eliminate this new power for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, so they are free to raise prices and pass on the cost to Colorado seniors.
The last, and most outrageous, example is Boebert’s effort this spring to push the U.S. toward the first ever default on the national debt, and use the threat of economic crisis as a bargaining chip to force harmful cuts to Medicare and other critical programs.
The harm that the Default on America plan Boebert voted for would have caused is clear: 1 million Colorado seniors and people with disabilities would endure longer wait times when seeking assistance for Social Security and Medicare; 641,000 Coloradans would have been put at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage; and 111,300 Colorado veterans could have lost access to outpatient visits, leaving them unable to get appointments for care like mental health services and substance disorder treatment.
Maybe Coloradans should have seen this coming. But we didn’t want to believe Boebert when she said: “We’re here to tell the government, we don’t want your benefits, we don’t want your welfare.”
Well, we are here to tell Rep. Boebert that she doesn’t speak for the nearly 1 million Coloradans of retirement age who worked hard to retire confidently. On the 58th anniversary of Medicare, we call on Lauren Boebert to do better for Colorado seniors and protect Medicare.
Katie Stewart is the Organizing Director for Rocky Mountain Values, a nonprofit economic issue advocacy organization that is fighting to make sure that all Coloradans can earn a good living and have a good life no matter their zip code. Stewart is a lifelong Durangoan, wife, mother and advocate.
