Twila Brase, RN and president/co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, is advocating for federal legislation known as the Retirement Freedom Act.
Introduced in by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), this legislation would allow seniors to opt out of Medicare without sacrificing their Social Security benefits.
"Under current law, seniors are unable to make health care decisions for themselves. This is completely unacceptable and why I reintroduced the Retirement Freedom Act," Rep. Palmer said in a press release.
President Lyndon B Johnson signed legislation on July 30, 1966 that created Medicare.
Statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicare state there are 62.2 million seniors enrolled in the program after reaching age 65. Another 7.1 million enrollees quality for disability.
Annual expenditures from those enrollees is now $1 trillion annually, which is 13% of the federal budget.
Back in 1976, ten years after the program began, Medicare was 4% of the federal budget with a $17 billion cost annually. Enrollment at the time was 22 million seniors and 2 million on disability, according to figures from the Social Security Administration.
Brase told AFN that Medicare is heading toward financial insolvency, projected for 2033, warned the federal government is increasingly rationing care to manage costs.
"What you really need to know,” Brase stressed, “is that you will have the care that you need when you need it rather than going through all of the hoops that Medicare is starting to impose on you.”
Americans concerned about making the Medicare decision -- and avoiding what Brase called 10 Medicare traps -- can read CCHF's free Medicare How-To Guide on the organization’s website.
"There is nothing else in the country that at the age of 65, suddenly all of your choices are taken away, and the only thing that you have left is Medicare, and Medicare is going away," said Brase. "That's one of the reasons that we say that this is really an age-discrimination program."
Cruz said in a press release Congress should act now to pass this "critical legislation" and give America's seniors the freedom and security they deserve.
