April, 23 2021, 12:00am EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Linda Benesch, lbenesch@socialsecurityworks.org
Mike Stankiewicz, mstankiewicz@citizen.org
Kenny Palmer, kenny@indivisible.org
48 Organizations Call on Biden to Include Bold Drug Pricing Reforms in the American Families Plan, Use the Savings to Expand Medicare
New Poll Shows that 86% of Americans Support Adding Dental, Hearing, and Vision Benefits to Medicare; 59% Support Lowering the Eligibility Age to 55
WASHINGTON
Today, 48 organizations led by Indivisible, Social Security Works, and Public Citizen released a letter calling President Joe Biden to include bold drug pricing reforms in his forthcoming American Families Plan and use the savings to expand and improve Medicare. Drug pricing reform will produce upwards of $450 billion in savings over 10 years. The organizations are calling on Biden to use these savings to reinvest in Medicare by:
- Adding dental, vision, and hearing benefits to Medicare;
- Lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 50;
- and Creating an out-of-pocket cap for medical expenses.
Alongside the letter, the organizations released new polling from Data for Progress showing wide support across party lines for expanding and improving Medicare. The poll found that 86 percent of Americans, including 82 percent of Republicans, support adding dental, hearing, and vision benefits to Medicare. It also found that three-quarters of Democrats, a majority of independents, and nearly half of Republicans support lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55.
"Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices down saves money for the federal government, which is the largest buyer of prescription drugs in the world," said Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works. "We must pump those savings back into Medicare to expand eligibility and add benefits that equalize Medicare with private insurance."
"Lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 50, capping out-of-pocket costs, and expanding benefits to include dental, hearing, and vision would improve access to care for millions of Americans. Far too many Americans have lost their insurance or put off needed care due to the COVID-19 crisis," said Eagan Kemp, Health Care Policy Advocate for Public Citizen. "The Biden Administration and Congress have a chance to deliver important progress at a crucial time."
"With the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic still being felt in our communities, now is a crucial moment to expand public health care coverage and deliver savings on prescription drug prices to the American people. Lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 50 will be an essential step towards reducing the racial health inequities by increasing coverage to communities of color and low-income folks," said Mary Small, Legislative Director for Indivisible. "Allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and then reinvesting those savings back into the program to expand services further strengthens our path towards universal coverage for all."
Social Security Works' mission is to: Protect and improve the economic security of disadvantaged and at-risk populations; Safeguard the economic security of those dependent, now or in the future, on Social Security; and Maintain Social Security as a vehicle of social justice.
LATEST NEWS
GOP Wants $27 Billion for Trump's Golden Dome 'Fantasy' While Working to Gut Working-Class Safety Net
"$27 billion for a golden defense dome, yet Republicans want to cut Medicaid," wrote one observer. "Vote accordingly in 2026."
Apr 25, 2025
As Republicans in Congress push forward with a sweeping tax and spending plan that could be be paid for in part by deep cuts to Medicaid and to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the GOP plans to add a defense package to that bill which will include "an initial $27 billion boost" for the Golden Dome desired by U.S. President Donald, according to Thursday reporting from Reuters.
Trump has said he wants an "Iron Dome for America"—something akin to Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense. In a speech earlier this year he referred to it as a "Golden Dome."
Experts who spoke to NPR recently said that building a Golden Dome would be more complicated than Israel's Iron Dome for multiple reasons. Dylan Spaulding, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, earlier this week called the Golden Dome idea a "complete fantasy."
According to Reuters, which cited "a document" and a congressional aide, the $27 billion would be a part of a $150 billion defense package Republicans plan to introduce. "It will be part of Trump's sweeping tax cuts bill, which will cut taxes by about $5 trillion and add approximately $5.7 trillion to the federal government's debt over the next decade," per the outlet. The measure, if passed, will also fund the construction of 14 warships and increase homeland security spending.
"The $27 billion investment in Golden Dome will fund the building of more missile interceptors and the purchase of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antiballistic missile batteries, according to the congressional aide. THAAD is made by Lockheed Martin," the defense contractor, Reuters reported.
According to reporting from the outlet last week, billionaire "Elon Musk's SpaceX and two partners have emerged as front-runners to win a crucial part of the Golden Dome program that would track incoming missiles."
Bob Peterson, a senior research fellow for strategic deterrence at the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation, applauded the move. Peterson shared Reuters' reporting and wrote on Friday: "This is an important start to building Golden Dome. I sincerely hope this passes so that missile defense will protect all Americans from our adversaries."
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the spending.
One observer wrote on social media: "Golden Dome missile defense shield? WTF. $27 billion for a golden defense dome, yet Republicans want to cut Medicaid and Social Security. Vote accordingly in 2026."
"More than 180 companies are interested, but Musk's Space X just so happens to be the 'front-runner' for the contracts," wrote Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), reacting to earlier reporting from Reuters about Musk's potential involvement in the project. "Shut this corrupt deal down. No cuts to Medicaid and Social Security to pay for more Musk contracts."
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Activist-Turned-Federal Prosecutor Sends 'Threatening' Letters to Medical Journals
One doctor and public health advocate called on editors to "join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail."
Apr 25, 2025
Reports of letters that an interim U.S. attorney has sent to several medical journals in the United States prompted a show of solidarity from the U.K.-based Lancet on Friday, with the publication denouncing "the harassment of journals" and warning it "comes amid wider radical dismantling of the USA's scientific infrastructure."
The letters, containing questions about the academic journals' bias, come a year after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he hoped to prosecute medical journals and accused the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)—which condemned President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020—of "lying to the public."
The letters from interim U.S. Attorney Edward Martin, who has previously been accused of using his office to target Trump's critics, are "an obvious ruse to strike fear into journals and impinge on their right to independent editorial oversight," said The Lancet.
NEJM is one of at least four medical journals that have received the correspondence from Martin recently. According toMedical Professionals Reference, the peer-reviewed journal CHEST, which is published by the American College of Chest Physicians, received a letter on April 14 with the following questions and a demand that editors respond by May 2:
- How do you assess your responsibilities to protect the public from misinformation?
- How do you clearly articulate to the public when you have certain viewpoints that are influenced by your ongoing relations with supporters, funders, advertisers, and others?
- Do you accept articles or essays from competing viewpoints?
- How do you assess the role played by government officials and funding organizations like the National Institutes of Health in the development of submitted articles?
- How do you handle allegations that authors of works in your journals may have misled their readers?
Martin also asked the editors whether "publishers, journals, and organizations with which you work are adjusting their method of acceptance of competing viewpoints."
Psychiatrist Eric Reinhart of Northwestern University posted the letter on X last week and asked what kinds of "competing viewpoints" Martin—former chair of the Missouri Republican Party and president of the right-wing Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund—might want to see a medical journals about respiratory health.
"'Is sarcoidosis actually bad?" Reinhart suggested sardonically. "Should trans people get treatment for chest infections? Is ivermectin the cure for lung cancer? Why shouldn't Joe Rogan perform lung transplants? So glad RFK Jr. is in charge to ensure these important views get airtime."
Reinhart urged other scientific journal editors to speak out against threats they receive from the Trump appointee.
Adam Gaffney, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts and former president of Physicians for a National Health Program, also called on journal editors to "join together and publicly renounce this as yet more thinly guised anti-science political blackmail."
"It is yet another example of the Trump administration's effort to control academic inquiry and stifle scientific discourse—an administration, it warrants mentioning, that has embraced medical misinformation and pseudoscience to reckless effect," Gaffney toldMedPage Today last week.
The letters have been received by the medical journals as Kennedy angered medical experts and families with his recent comments about autism, claiming that "most cases now are severe"—a claim not backed up by science. Kennedy has also recently downplayed measles outbreaks in the United States before finally admitting this month that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is the best defense against the disease.
The Trump administration has also cut funding for health agencies, prompting concern that it is sabotaging the country's ability to produce high-quality biomedical research as it has for generations.
NEJM responded to Martin ahead of the May 2 deadline, telling the prosecutor the journal uses "rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish. We support the editorial independence of medical journals and their First Amendment rights to free expression."
Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of the publication, told The New York Times, "Our job is to evaluate science and evaluate it in an unbiased fashion."
"The questions seem to suggest that there's some bias in what we do—that's where the vaguely threatening part comes in," Rubin said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.
Apr 25, 2025
As Israel continues to bomb and impose a total blockade on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations World Food Program announced Friday that "WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens" in the Palestinian enclave, which "are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days."
"For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25% of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline," the U.N. program said in a statement. "WFP is also deeply concerned about the severe lack of safe water and fuel for cooking—forcing people to scavenge for items to burn to cook a meal."
This is just the latest troubling update from the group since Israel began its total blockade on March 2—following months of severely restricting aid and commercial goods—and then ditched a fragile cease-fire with Gaza-based Hamas that had been in effect since mid-January. Last month, all 25 WFP-supported bakeries closed due to lack of wheat flour and cooking fuel, and program parcels with two weeks of rations for families were exhausted.
"More than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza."
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."
Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."
While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."
The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."
The Associated Press reported that "COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid in Gaza, declined to comment on the amount of supplies remaining in the territory. It has previously said Gaza had enough aid after a surge in distribution during the cease-fire."
The WFP statement came after an Israeli drone strike that hit a food distribution center in central Gaza on Thursday and Israel's Tuesday airstrikes that destroyed several bulldozers used to clear streets and remove bodies from beneath rubble.
While humanitarian organizations have shared fresh warnings about conditions in the enclave this week—Oxfam's Clemence Lagouardat said Tuesday that "it's hard to explain just how terrible things are in Gaza at the moment"—Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, shared violent rhetoric.
Ben-Gvir claimed that "senior Republican Party officials" whom he met at U.S. President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence "expressed support for my very clear position" that Gaza "food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages" taken during the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel.
While Trump—like his Democratic predecessor—has supported Israel's military assault, he also claimed to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, "Gaza came up and I said, 'We've got to be good to Gaza... Those people are suffering.'"
According toReuters.
When asked whether he raised the issue of opening up access points for aid into Gaza, Trump replied, "We are."
"We're going to take care of that. There's a very big need for medicine, food and medicine, and we're taking care of it," he said.
Asked how Netanyahu responded, Trump said: "Felt well about it."
As for cease-fire negotiations,
Drop Site News obtained a draft proposal for a 45-day "bridge" deal that is "being pushed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators." The outlet reported Friday that "while the current proposal largely aligns with the one that Hamas agreed to on March 29 and which Israel rejected, the new terms related to disarmament and no clear path to complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will likely meet stiff resistance from Hamas' negotiators."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular