Commenting on the many challenges hospitals and healthcare workers faced during the pandemic, Johnson said Social Security and Medicare became frequent targets of deficit cut negotiations during the recovery from the Great Recession and the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts.
She explained that deficit plans have included proposals to tie the annual cost-of-living adjustment to the slower-growing chained consumer price index, while the Budget Control Act of 2011 led to automatic 2% annual Medicare cuts on payments to providers.
“That cut affected all Medicare providers, including hospitals, doctors, nursing staff,” Johnson said. “These are the very same providers that are now so dangerously strained by the coronavirus pandemic.”
The Senior Citizens League is one of the nation’s largest nonpartisan seniors groups with 1.2 million supporters. It promotes and assists members and supporters, and educates and alerts senior citizens about their rights and freedoms as U.S. citizens.