Donald Trying To Use Taxpayer Money To Buy Seniors' Votes For $200 Each

 

Decade after decade, seniors have always been the most reliable voters. In 2016, Trump won among voters over 65 years old. He beat Hillary 53-44% in this cohort, which is how he managed to win. This cycle, polls have been showing his numbers among the elderly slipping drastically, enough to cost him senior-heavy states like Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and possibly Iowa, Ohio, Montana and Georgia.

Seniors have noticed that Trump is full of crap and that his three and a half years in office have been a disaster for them. So he's trying to buy their votes with a cheap scheme-- a $200 discount card for prescription drugs that he's stealing from Medicare.

Wall Street Journal reporter Stephanie Armour wrote early yesterday that his coupon program will be funded by the Medicare Trust Fund, under a program that lets him waive standards to test new initiatives. The regime expects to send out 33 Trump cards before the election. Always the smooth talking snake oil salesman , Señor T told an audience at a super-spreader event in North Carolina that "Nobody’s seen this before, these cards are incredible. The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks, I will always take care of our wonderful senior citizens. Joe Biden won’t be doing this."

This election stunt will cost the taxpayers $6.6 billion. Stat News reported that "It is unclear whether Trump’s promises on $200 credits for prescription drug coupons will come to fruition. Under the Constitution, it is Congress, not the White House, that is empowered to spend taxpayer money, and it is unclear where the roughly $6.6 billion for the program would come from. The idea has never been formally proposed or sketched out by health officials, though the New York Times reported this week that Trump officials had tried to convince the pharmaceutical industry to pay for similar cards worth $100. The drug industry refused."

Texas has one of the biggest populations of senior citizens anywhere and Julie Oliver is running in a central Texas district on a platform that includes protecting and expanding the rights of seniors, not on cheap election eve shenanigans. She told me that her mom "was a public school teacher who really struggled to survive on Social Security, and I understand that we need to expand it, not allow multi-millionaires like Roger Williams to game the system, and pay less into Social Security than their fair share. For years, he’s been threatening to cut Social Security so that Wall Street CEOs can keep getting richer. So let’s be clear. When I’m elected, we’re going to protect the earned benefits that Mexican seniors have paid into their whole lives, and we’re going to expand social security by making billionaires pay their fair share."

Cathy Kunkel is running for a House seat in the middle of the Trumpiest state in America West Virginia. She's campaigning on uplifting work families and noted yesterday that "Instead of poorly conceived election-day gimmicks, West Virginians need real healthcare reform. And we certainly won't get there with a president and Congressional representative who have tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to take away healthcare from people with pre-existing conditions-- and who have made no real attempt in the past 4 year to challenge the power of the pharmaceutical industry and bring down prescription drug prices."

The are a bunch of Republican, ex-Republican and #NeverTrump groups releasing ads attacking Trump, his morals, his allies, his tactics, and his policies. They seem to be mostly talking to each other, to some right-wing elites and to Democrats who already hate Donald's guts. But the State Government Leadership Foundation, which is the dark money PAC of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), isn't part of that bubble. They are very much a part of the Republican Party Establishment. But yesterday they started running an ad that savages a Trumpanzee election stunt-- his new drug pricing proposal-- albeit without mentioning Donald by name. They're working with PhRMA against Trump and I doubt they would be doing anything like this if they thought he had a real chance to serve a second term. PhRMA is one of the top financial backers of the RSLC and the State Government Leadership Foundation and Trump doesn't have the guts to go after them. Watch:

The Pandemic Has Been Much Worse For The Worst Off So Far, But... Have You Ever Heard Of Trickle Up?

COVID-45 by Nancy Ohanian

This list is each state in order of population:

• California- 39,937,489
• Texas- 29,472,295
• Florida- 21,992,985
• New York- 19,440,469
• Pennsylvania- 12,820,878
• Illinois- 12,659,682
• Ohio- 11,747,694
• Georgia- 10,736,059
• North Carolina- 10,611,862
• Michigan- 10,045,029
• New Jersey- 8,936,574
• Virginia- 8,626,207
• Washington- 7,797,095
• Arizona- 7,378,494
• Massachusetts- 6,976,597
• Tennessee- 6,897,576
• Indiana- 6,745,354
• Missouri- 6,169,270
• Maryland- 6,083,116
• Wisconsin- 5,851,754
• Colorado- 5,845,526
• Minnesota- 5,700,671
• South Carolina- 5,210,095
• Alabama- 4,908,621
• Louisiana- 4,645,184
• Kentucky- 4,499,692
• Oregon- 4,301,089
• Oklahoma- 3,954,821
• Connecticut- 3,563,077
• Utah- 3,282,115
• Iowa- 3,179,849
• Nevada- 3,139,658
• Arkansas- 3,038,999
• Mississippi- 2,989,260
• Kansas- 2,910,357
• New Mexico- 2,096,640
• Nebraska- 1,952,570
• Idaho- 1,826,156
• West Virginia- 1,778,070
• Hawaii- 1,412,687
• New Hampshire- 1,371,246
• Maine- 1,345,790
• Montana- 1,086,759
• Rhode Island- 1,056,161
• Delaware- 982,895
• South Dakota- 903,027
• North Dakota- 761,723
• Alaska- 734,002
• DC- 720,687
• Vermont- 628,061
• Wyoming- 567,025

And this is a list of states listed by number of coronavirus cases per one million population. The number grew in every single state between Wednesday and today. That's not the kind of curve movement anyone wants to see. The number in parenthesis is the actual number of cases as of Thursday.

• New York- 13,690 (268,581)
• New Jesery- 11,258 (99,989)
• Massachusetts- 6,738 (46,023)
• Connecticut- 6,450 (23,100)
• Rhode Island- 5,921 (6,256)
• Louisiana- 5,519 (25,739)
• DC- 4,910 (3,361)
• Michigan- 3,544 (37,053)
• Delaware- 3,484 (3,308)
• Pennsylvania- 2,897 (35,684)
• Illinois- 2,881 (36,934)
• Maryland- 2,621 (15,737)
• South Dakota- 2,263 (1,956)
• Georgia- 2,089 (21,512)
• Colorado- 2,036 (11,262)
• Indiana- 1,964 (13,039)
• Mississippi- 1,724 (5,153)
• Washington- 1,713 (12,494)
• Nevada- 1,440 (4,208)
• Florida- 1,439 (29,648)
• Vermont- 1,320 (825)
• Virginia- 1,307 (10,998)
• Tennessee- 1,307 (8,266)
• Ohio- 1,262 (14,694)
• Iowa- 1,253 (3,924)
• New Hampshire- 1,243 (1,670)
• Alabama- 1,196 (5,816)
• Utah- 1,186 (3,612)
• New Mexico- 1,137 (2,379)
• Nebraska- 1,115 (2,124)
• Idaho- 1,068 (1,802)
• Missouri- 1,038 (6,321)
• California- 996 (39,009)
• South Carolina- 992 (4,917)
• North Dakota- 943 (709)
• Wisconsin- 874 (5,052)
• Kansas- 853 (2,482)
• Arizona- 830 (5,769)
• Arkansas- 824 (2,465)
• Texas- 787 (21,944)
• Kentucky- 784 (3,481)
• Wyoming- 779 (453)
• Oklahoma- 770 (3,017)
• North Carolina- 764 (7,759)
• Maine- 703 (937)
• West Virginia- 536 (981)
• Oregon- 521 (2,127)
• Alaska- 456 (337)
• Montana- 424 (442)
• Hawaii- 419 (596)

Horrible, right? Want a silver lining? Trump's crisis mismanagement is alienating seniors, the nation's most dependable voters-- and voters that supported Trump in 2016 and oppose him in polls now. Josh Kraushaar wrote that "by turning the coronavirus crisis into a partisan issue so quickly, Trump ensures that he’s on the losing side of the debate. Just look at the numbers. Even as small protests against stay-at-home orders have percolated in several states, public polling shows minimal opposition to statewide restrictions. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that just 22 percent of Americans supported the protests, with only 36 percent of Republicans in agreement. Far from agreeing with the president’s Twitter demands to 'liberate' states with stay-at-home orders, they agree with his administration’s more cautious guidance.

Going against the tide of public opinion carries serious political consequences. This column has pointed out the downward trajectory of Trump’s approval ratings as he struggles to demonstrate competence in this crisis while failing to offer clarity about the path forward. But he risks doing greater damage by going against the interests of his own voters.

For a preview on how things could get worse for the president, look at the evolving political views of seniors, one of Trump’s most supportive constituencies in the previous election. They are also the most concerned about the coronavirus, given they have a much greater risk of dying if they become infected.

The latest Morning Consult poll found that 65-and-older voters prioritized defeating the coronavirus over healing the economy by nearly a 6-to-1 ratio. And over the past month, they’ve become the group most disenchanted with Trump’s handling of the crisis. In mid-March, seniors were more supportive of Trump than any other age group (plus-19 net approval). Now, their net approval of the president has dropped 20 points and is lower than any age group outside of the youngest Americans.

Those findings were matched by a new NBC/WSJ poll, which tested the presidential matchup between Trump and Joe Biden. Among seniors 65 and older, Biden led Trump by 9 points, 52 to 43 percent. That’s a dramatic 16-point swing from Hillary Clinton’s showing in the 2016 election; she lost seniors by 7 points to Trump (52-45 percent).

Seniors are among the most engaged voters in the country (71 percent went to the polls in 2016), and were critical to Trump’s victory. They’ve remained supportive of him for much of his presidency. And they’re counting on the president to protect them at a particularly precarious moment. If Trump’s desire to quickly reopen the economy ends up backfiring, they’ll be the first to abandon him and deal his reelection prospects a crippling blow.

Poll after poll keeps finding that a majority of American voters say that Trump is the least trusted to make decisions about reopening the economy. Across every state in the new Change Research survey of battlegrounds, state and local governments are more trusted to make those decisions-- and with the exception of Ron DeSantis-- governors, including the Democratic governors whom Trump has been criticizing, earn better marks than Trump for their handling of coronavirus.

Not many people alive today experienced the Great Depression but older Americans certainly heard all about-- in horrific terms-- from their parents. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz told The Guardian that Trump's incompetence is pushing us right into a second Great Depression. "The numbers turning to food banks," said Stiglitz, "are just enormous and beyond the capacity of them to supply. It is like a third world country. The public social safety net is not working... We have a safety net that is inadequate. The inequality in the U.S. is so large. This disease has targeted those with the poorest health. In the advanced world, the U.S. is one of the countries with the poorest health overall and the greatest health inequality... If you leave it to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, we will have a Great Depression. If we had the right policy structure in place we could avoid it easily."

Stiglitz said Republicans had opposed proposals to give those affected by coronavirus 10 days’ sick leave, meaning many employees were going to work even while infected. “The Republicans said no because they said it would set a bad precedent. It is literally unbelievable.”

...Stiglitz said that as a result of Trump’s mismanagement, the White House office responsible for pandemics had been closed, funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been cut, and the US had gone into the crisis without enough testing kits, masks and protective gear. Encouraged by Trump, some parts of the US were determined to reopen in a way that would facilitate the transmission of the disease and lead to a fresh outbreak, he added.

“In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression.

“We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.”

Successful Aging

A little less than 2 weeks ago, the House passed H.R. 1230, Bobby Scott's Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act. Every single Democrat plus 34Republicans voted for it. Who could possibly be against protecting older workers from discrimination. Well, let's start with the 154 Republicans who voted against it, including the entire GOP House leadership, as well as extreme ideologues like Ken Calvert, Devin Nunes, Lee Zeldin, Greg Gianforte to mention a few. And then there's Mitch McConnell, who is refusing to even allow a debate and vote in the Senate, calling it "socialist." Where does this opposition to older workers come from?

Dan Levitin is a distinguished neuroscientist, psychology professor and author. His new book, Successful Aging was released Dutton last week. More about the book in a moment. While Dan and I were corresponding about H.R. 1230, he wrote that "In 2020, it is clear that we still find a great deal of bigotry and repression again our fellow citizens. Fortunately, most of the 'isms' have become part of the national conversation: racism, sexism, prejudice against LGBTQ individuals, members of various religions and countries. One pernicious and insidious form of bigotry persists without any significant organized national conversation: agism. It is desperately hard for someone over the age of 55 to receive a promotion or be hired into a new job. With the extraordinary advances in health and medical science, we’re not just living longer than ever, but healthier than ever. For the first time, there are more Americans over 65 than under 5. And neuroscience research is clear that continuing to work into our 80s and beyond is neuroprotective, helping to fend off Alzheimer’s and a range of diseases. As our societal narrative tends to marginalize older adults, it has not kept pace with scientific developments. Older adults have superior problem solving and pattern matching skills, tend to be more compassionate and tolerant, and to find solutions that elude their younger counterparts. What would it mean to treat older adults as a resource rather than a burden? It would mean harnessing the wisdom and compassion of a growing segment of the population whom we have tended to marginalize. Working older adults would continue to contribute to social security rather than drawing from it."

State Rep. Tom Winter is a progressive Democrat running for Montana's one statewide congressional seat. He told me he's well aware that our society’s ageism is a silent enforcer of wealth and class disparities. "People all over the country talk about the idea of the 'New West'-- cities like Bozeman or Missoula or Boulder or Boise-- that are driving growth and attracting new residents. But that growth is fundamentally unequal in so many ways. The hallmark of rural Montana beyond those growing cities is an aging population, and we need a politics, and a worldview, that responds to the needs of older adults and values the contributions they can make. We must stop viewing economic growth as keyed to younger workers. To do that is to perpetuate our society’s ageism and increase the inequality of opportunity in rural communities across my state and the country."

Dan wrote that his research reveals that our societal narrative about aging is false and out of date. The book's premise is that old age need not be a time of decline and irrelevance, but rather, a time of increased creativity, improvement in problem-solving skills, and full of meaning. He explodes several myths including the myth of failing memory, and the myth of old age depression. He wrote that "Across 72 countries the peak age of happiness is 82." He's hoping that the book will help change the conversation and he's trying to make the point that agism is one of the last biases that we tolerate in society. As he said above, it's difficult for older adults to get a job or get promoted. Two-thirds of American workers said they had witnessed or experienced age discrimination at work. "Employers should recognize that offering opportunities to older workers is smart business," he wrote, "not just a feel-good, charitable act. Multigenerational teams with older members tend to be more productive; older adults boost the productivity of those around them, and such teams outperform single-generational ones."




Singer/songwriter Rosanne Cash wrote that Successful Aging "is the book I need now. This is probably the book you need now. Levitin beautifully weaves hard science with more subtle, subjective agents of change-- compassion, friendship, the redemptive power of work-- into a refreshing guide for those of us navigating the penultimate stage of life."

Dan gave me three autographed copies of Successful Aging to help in our efforts to raise some contributions for Tom Winter's campaign. It doesn't matter how much you contribute but any contribution that comes in for Tom on this page or at the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right, before Tuesday at 6pm (PT) will give you a chance to win one of the autographed books. We're going to select three winners at random. You don't have to live in Montana and you don't have to be an older voter. Anyone can give it a try. Tom's a great candidate anyway and you can read more about him on his own website here. His campaign is fueled by issues like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, expanding labor rights, housing for all and criminal justice reform.

All But 34 Republicans Cast A Very Dangerous Vote Against Seniors On Wednesday

You would think that passing Bobby Scott's Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act (H.R. 1230) would be easy as pie. And it kind of was. It passed the House Monday 261-155, every single Democrat voting yes-- even the worst of the Blue Dogs and New Dems and 34 Republicans jumping the fence to vote with the Dems-- a relatively very large number of Republicans. Almost all the endangered Republicans-- the ones most likely to be defeated in November and who are desperate for every vote they can corral-- voted yes. A dozen examples:

• Don Bacon (R-NE)
• Troy Balderson (R-OH)
• Mike Bost (R-IL)
• Rodney Davis (R-IL)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-OR)
• John Katko (R-NY)
• Brian Mast (R-FL)
• Michael McCaul (R-TX)
• Chris Smith (R-NJ)
• Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ)

So why would so many Republicans cross the aisle and why would so many vote against it. The whole idea of the bill is the amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 to "establish an unlawful employment practice when the complaining party demonstrates that age or participation in investigations, proceedings, or litigation under such Act was a motivating factor for any unlawful employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice (thereby allowing what are commonly known as 'mixed motive' claims). The bill (1) permits a complaining party to rely on any type or form of admissible evidence, which need only be sufficient for a reasonable trier of fact to find that an unlawful practice occurred; and (2) declares that a complaining party shall not be required to demonstrate that age or retaliation was the sole cause of the employment practice (thereby rejecting the Supreme Court's decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., which requires a complainant to prove that age was the 'but-for' cause for the employer's decision). The bill authorizes a court in a claim in which age discrimination is shown to grant declaratory and injunctive relief, but prohibits a court from awarding damages or issuing an order requiring any admission, reinstatement, hiring, promotion, or payment. The bill applies the same standard of proof to other employment discrimination and retaliation claims, including claims under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973."

Sounds sensible? Well, there weren't many Republicans in real reelection battles this year who voted NO. The only ones I could find were extreme right ideologues Steve King (R-IA), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA), John Carter (R-TX) and anti-union fanatic Greg Gianforte, a crackpot congressman running for the Senate in Montana. I talked with Dary Rezvani, the progressive in this Central Valley race, about Nunes' vote. "We have a responsibility," he said, "to take care of our most vulnerable populations, including our seniors. There are over 140,000 seniors that live in California’s 22nd district and with housing and medical costs only rising, you would think that Nunes would pay attention to the needs of his constituents. He is only concerned with carrying out the agenda of the Trump Administration and unfortunately that leaves our seniors with a representative who votes against them. Votes against protection against discrimination votes against the Senior Protection Act 2010, co-sponsored legislation in 2014 to eradicate the individual mandate, which we know will disproportionately affect seniors utilizing healthcare services. As a millennial running for office, I can see firsthand what happens when government services meant to support our seniors’ fail and it falls to a family safety net. Not all of our seniors have a family to rely on and it is our duty to provide basic government services to protect them and build a plan for long-term care."

Bernie Needs More Support From His Contemporaries-- His Campaign Is Working On It

Adrian Pantoja is a Professor of Politics at Pitzer College and a senior analyst for Latino Decisions. Over the weekend, they released some new polling of Latino voters in California, who overwhelmingly favor Bernie for president. Pantoja wrote that "one of the primary ways to win the hearts and minds of young Latinos is by campaigning on issues that matter most to them." Bernie seems to have accomplished that.

This table lists the top ten policy issues for young Latinos in California. Pantoja pointed out that the ten top issues are important for all respondents, regardless of age but, what is distinct among young Latino voters is that the ranking of these issues differs. "For example, access to affordable housing is the most pressing issue for young Latino voters, while lowering health care costs is the most pressing issue for older Latino voters. Protecting immigrant rights ranks second among younger Latinos, while this issue ranks fourth among older Latinos. The relative importance of immigration issues may be due to the fact that 52 percent of young Latinos say they have a family member or close friend who is undocumented, while only 24 percent of Latinos 50 years and older know someone in that situation. The policy issues of young Latino voters relative to older Latino voters are more alike than different." Bernie's task now is to win over more older voters, not just Latino seniors but seniors across the board.

Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporter Eliza Collins took up the issue of Bernie's outreach to seniors. In Iowa, he was asking his most enthusiastic young followers to help him persuade their parents. "His campaign," she wrote "is coaching thousands of young supporters on how to talk to their parents and grandparents during the holidays.

“It’s up to us as students and young people to make the moral appeal to our older relatives to join us in voting for Bernie, because let’s face it: they won’t be around for as long to deal with the consequences of this election, but we will be,” reads a document titled “Students for Bernie: Family Persuasion Guide” that was sent out to nearly 3,000 students ahead of Thanksgiving. The campaign plans to do another push before the holidays later this month.

Aides to Mr. Sanders, 78 years old, say he can win the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 if he is able to turn out a diverse coalition of young and working-class people who don’t typically vote in the primaries.

But in recent months, these aides have also acknowledged that he needs to do better with older voters, a section of the electorate that has been more likely to go to the polls than their younger counterparts have been.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed Mr. Sanders with 52% of support among Democratic primary voters under age 35, but just 2% with those over 65. By contrast, former Vice President Joe Biden won the backing of 47% of voters over 65 in that poll. Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling shows a similar trend.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in an interview that the campaign has made more of an effort to focus on seniors in the past three months and hopes to peel off some voters who have been supporting other candidates.

Urging young supporters to talk to older relatives about Mr. Sanders is an unconventional strategy. The campaign is also taking some more traditional steps.

A six-figure digital ad buy in Iowa includes one spot targeting senior voters [up top]. The ad features Mr. Sanders speaking at a town hall in Des Moines about expanding Social Security benefits and capping the cost of prescription-drug prices.

Aides to Mr. Sanders also say the $8 million they have put into TV advertisements in the states that have early primaries will help them reach seniors because they are placing the ads during shows that are popular with older audiences.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign is airing most spots during the local news and network morning shows, according to data from political-ad tracker Kantar/CMAG. It is also buying time during the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, daytime talk programs The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Dr. Phil and the game show Family Feud.

According to the Sanders campaign, 20% of the events he hosted in November were senior-focused. On the campaign trail, Mr. Sanders often says that Medicare for All, a signature policy, would cover home health care, hearing aids and eyeglasses. He rails against pharmaceutical companies ratcheting up the cost of prescription drugs.

Winning older voters could be particularly key in Iowa and New Hampshire, states with older populations and the first two to vote in the nominating contest. Sixty-four percent of Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa in 2016 were over age 45. Fifty-nine percent of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters were in that age group, according to entrance and exit polling.

Mr. Sanders has been visiting both states to try to shore up his support, and he has won over some senior voters.

Judy Plank, a 76-year-old retiree from Le Mars, Iowa, said she liked Mr. Sanders because his age meant he had a wealth of political experience and because she has long supported the same issues he has.

“We’re contemporaries, he’s a year older but we won’t let that bother any of us,” she said at a rally in November. She thought her peers who didn’t like him were just scared of new ideas, “and then they’re mad at him because they’re scared,” she said.

Many candidates-- though not the conservative ones, like Sttaus Quo Joe, Mayo Pete and Bloomberg-- have embraced Bernie's proposal for expanding Social Security, The Right To A Secure Retirement. There are 4 key components to his plan:

• Expand Social Security benefits for all recipients and protect pensions.
• Guarantee home and community based long-term care services.
• Protect our most vulnerable seniors by quadrupling funding for the Older Americans Act and expanding other programs seniors rely on.
• Expand and train the direct care workforce we need.

Slashing drug prices is another piece of this that has widespread appeal to seniors, especially since Trump's bullshit promises in 2016 have amounted to nothing at all. In fact, the cost of medicine has increased. Bernie wrote that "In the United States, we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This year alone the price of major prescription drugs have increased more than five times the rate of inflation with price hikes as high as 875 percent. While about one out of five Americans cannot afford to pay for the medicine prescribed by their doctors,10 big drug companies made $69 billion in profits last year and the top 25 CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry received $440 million in compensation in 2017. Seniors take an average of 4.5 drugs every month. For a senior taking brand name medications, the yearly price of those medications was more than $30,000 in 2017, more than most seniors’ annual income. Nearly a quarter of seniors with prescriptions have a hard time affording their medicine. Under Medicare for All, we will stop the pharmaceutical industry from ripping off seniors by making sure that no one in America pays over $200 a year for the medicine they need by capping what Americans pay for prescription drugs. This is exactly what exists in countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden and New Zealand.  Under this plan, seniors will never experience another donut hole where they are forced to pay thousands of dollars for the life-saving medicine they need. We will also take bold action to take on the pharmaceutical industry by:

• Requiring Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices while maintaining access to all FDA-approved medications.
• Cut drug prices by 50% by making sure the U.S. pays no more for prescription drugs than other major countries.
• Allow patients, pharmacists and wholesalers to purchase lower-cost drugs from Canada and other countries.
• Exercise federal march-in rights to manufacture drugs produced at taxpayer expense.
• Require companies to disclose the costs of clinical drug trials.

"At a time when about half of American households over the age of 55 have no retirement savings and one out of five seniors are trying to live on less than $13,500 a year, our job is not to cut Social Security," wrote Bernie, who has been saying this for decades. "Our job is to expand Social Security so that everyone in this country can retire with the dignity they have earned and everyone with a disability can live with the security they need. Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. Before Social Security was signed into law, nearly half of seniors lived in poverty. Today, while much too high, the poverty rate for seniors is down to 9.2 percent. Through good times and bad, Social Security has paid every nickel owed to every eligible American-- on time and without delay.  That is an extraordinary accomplishment. Despite what you may have heard from those who want to cut back on Social Security, let’s be clear: Social Security is not “going broke.” Social Security has a $2.9 trillion surplus and can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 16 years.   Although Social Security’s finances are strong, Congress must strengthen and expand it for generations to come. How do we do that? Simple. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the wealthiest Americans in this country must pay their fair share into the system. Today, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $132,900 a year because the Social Security payroll tax is capped.

Here's the plan that should have him in the number one spot among seniors, just as he is among Americans under 40:

• First, we will make sure that Social Security will pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 52 years.
• Second, we will expand benefits across-the-board including a $1,300 a year benefit increase for seniors with incomes of $16,000 a year or less.
• Third, we will lift millions of seniors out of poverty by increasing the minimum benefits paid to low-income workers when they retire.
• Fourth, we will increase cost-of-living adjustments to keep up with the rising cost of health care and prescription drugs by establishing a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly.