More than 11,000 surveyed Hoosier seniors want their political candidates to leave Social Security and Medicare pretty much intact.
June Lyle, director of AARP Indiana, says the organization has been talking with seniors across the state since March, and AARP is presenting their findings to all the congressional candidates.
“Hoosiers care very passionately about Medicare and Social Security. It’s very important that those programs they feel they’ve paid into over time should be protected and strengthened.”
Lyle says most seniors understand the programs might need modest adjustments or tweaking. Sadly, she adds, a lot of older Hoosiers think Washington is not listening.
The AARP state director says 98 percent of eligible Hoosier seniors were enrolled in Medicare and 96 percent received Social Security benefits last year.
Lyle says the average annual Social Security benefit for an Indiana senior was $14,700.
“For somebody who is surviving with Social Security as their sole source of income, that’s really a very modest amount of money to try to get by on from month to month.”
She says while Medicare pays for a lot of medical expenses, Hoosiers on average also had to pay about $5,000 a year out-of-pocket.
Lyle says the survey results are being delivered to each congressperson and candidate.
“The nice thing about these reports is they are broken down specific to congressional district. Each member of Congress or candidate can look at this and get a sense of what people in their area specifically are saying.”
Lyle urges all seniors and voters to visit Aarp.org to check out the voter guide and learn exactly what their candidates say about these two programs.
