Just hours before the first presidential debate, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius delivered a message about the dire need to protect聽Medicare and Medicaid funding聽to a critical electoral constituency.
File Photo by Jessica Marcy/KHN
Sebelius was the keynote speaker at the in Washington, an annual meeting of Hispanic health care, housing, aging and nutrition experts. During her address, she told the audience that the Republican budget would turn Medicaid into and cut its funding by $750 billion over the next 10 years.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 almost a third of the funding for Medicaid that would be gone,鈥 she said. 鈥淎nd their proposal ends Medicare as we know it by changing it from the guaranteed benefits that we currently have into a voucher program and turning seniors over to navigate and negotiate with insurance companies.鈥
The lead up to election day has pushed candidates from both parties to 聽—聽especially as they vie for seniors鈥 votes. Last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a , “Our approach has always been that the three most important issues in the campaign, in alphabetical order, have been Medicare, Medicare and Medicare.”
The GOP ticket has maintained that into a block grant聽would provide聽states greater flexilibility to administer it聽based on their individual needs while also easing some of the budget pressures Medicaid has created.聽Their proposals for Medicare聽would give future beneficiaries聽more options while making the聽program聽more sustainable over the long term.
During her speech, Sebelius also pointed to the recent collaboration between NHCOA and the Medicare fraud prevention program called the . Last year the expanded from Texas to include Florida, a state with a high percentage of elderly Hispanics. Fraud has been an on-going issue for aging Hispanics, who, according to the initiative鈥檚 website, often 鈥渇eel frightened, isolated, and misunderstood.鈥 The program is designed to use cultural and linguistic resources such as “promotores”– or community health advocates — to educate Hispanic seniors on Medicare fraud and to provide technical assistance to organizations that cater to aging Hispanic communities. 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen this work pay off,鈥 said Sebelius, noting that prosecutions of health care fraud cases have increased 75 percent since 2008.
