Looking Forward to Election Day: America’s Most Active Voting Block

With Election Day just a few hours away, policymakers and thought leaders must take note of America’s most active and politically aware voting block: senior citizens.

Senior citizens play a clear, and absolutely critical role in future direction of America.  And their ballots will directly impact the defining policy decisions of the next decade.

For many seniors, the principal issue of the 2014 elections is healthcare.  And as more Americans become eligible for Medicare coverage each day, there is a heightened focus on – and concern about – Medicare policy issues. As a result, seniors are very attuned to changes that could undermine the healthcare services and providers upon which they depend.

And cuts to home healthcare will be chief amongst those changes.

Using the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration cut Medicare home health funding by an unprecedented 14 percent at the start of this year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) admitted that “approximately 40 percent” of all home healthcare providers in America would be operating at a loss by the end of 2017 as a result of this cut.

As a result, thousands of providers may be forced to close their doors if this cut stands uncorrected, directly impacting 1.3 million American seniors and costing the jobs of 465,000 home healthcare professionals, according to Avalere Health.

While 38 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives have signed on to legislation that would stop the Medicare home health cut and replace it with sustainable Medicare payment reforms, there is still much work to be done to ensure the future health of our seniors.

Therefore, the future of Medicare home health home health will be defined, in part, by how seniors vote when they mail their ballots from home or enter the voting booths tomorrow.  After all, the sustainability of home health significantly depends on public officials who truly understand the wishes of their constituents and fight for the wellbeing of senior citizens across the nation.