Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Bolduc’s aim is clear: He wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. Bolduc has called Medicare privatization “hugely important,” promised to ensure that “we no longer have Social Security,” and said that Social Security has “been there since 1935, it’s time for change.”
By the numbers, here is what Bolduc’s promise to end Social Security and Medicare means for the Granite State:
JEOPARDIZE CARE FOR MORE THAN 307,000 GRANITE STATERS ON MEDICARE
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New Hampshire has one of the highest senior populations nationwide: 307,567 Granite Staters are enrolled in Medicare, and nearly 20% of residents are 65 or older.
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Bolduc promised as recently as August that he would end Medicare as we know it, on top of previous demands to cut $1.2 trillion from Medicare, taking essential health care from Granite State seniors.
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Bolduc’s assertion that “privatization is hugely important” would result in“higher out-of-pocket costs, denied claims, and limited networks” of providers in a state where nearly 20% of residents are 65 or older.
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321,925 people in New Hampshire receive Social Security to make ends meet.
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93% of all seniors in New Hampshire — 249,744 older Granite Staters — rely on Social Security.
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Bolduc has repeatedly doubled down on his attacks on Social Security, promising to end the program and “no longer have Social Security,” saying it was “for a different time, for a different place,” and is “bankrupting” the country, and demanding to cut “$2 trillion from Social Security.”
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Bolduc’s insistence that Social Security is “for a different time, for a different place,” that it’s “bankrupting” the country, and his promise to end the program would place a hefty burden on American taxpayers.
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Economists have found that plans to privatize and end Social Security would have massive and negative impacts on middle class Americans, slashing benefits for 70 percent of all taxpayers nationwide and creating “huge new government deficits to finance the carving up of Social Security.”
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Experts make clear that efforts to privatize Social Security require “a big tax increase” on today’s workers in order to cover changes experienced by current Social Security beneficiaries and to ensure that future generations can receive any benefits. This also shifts risk onto people who are saving for retirement, leaving their savings vulnerable to being decimated by one bad investment.
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In addition to repeated attacks on Social Security and Medicare, Bolduc supports slashing the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA).
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Bolduc’s promise to slash COLA would cut benefits for current retirees by $1,400 each year — a more than 9% slash in benefits for seniors — and “reduce benefits for current and future retirees, while increasing their taxes” and the disproportionate impact will be felt by Social Security’s oldest beneficiaries. These are often women who have outlived their other sources of income and rely on Social Security as their only lifeline to financial stability.
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Bolduc also said “hell no” to a new law that would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug costs for seniors, cap out-of-pocket pharmaceutical costs at $2,000 per year for Medicare patients, and cap out-of-pocket insulin costs for Medicare patients at $35 per month.
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Bolduc supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, which would reopen the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole,” forcing Medicare Part D enrollees to pay 100 percent of their drug costs and spend more than $1,500 out of pocket on average each year.
Time and again, Bolduc has shown he is too extreme for New Hampshire and out-of-step with Granite Staters. Social Security and Medicare are some of the most popular programs in the United States, and their end would mean devastation for people across the Granite State. New Hampshire cannot afford Don Bolduc’s dangerous promise to end Social Security and Medicare.