Democrats are proud to be the party that created Social Security, one of the nation’s mostsuccessful and effective programs. Without Social Security, nearly half of America’s seniorswould be living in poverty. Social Security is more than just a retirement program. It alsoprovides important life insurance to young survivors of deceased workers and provides disabilityinsurance protection. We will fight every effort to cut, privatize, or weaken Social Security,including attempts to raise the retirement age, diminish benefits by cutting cost-of-livingadjustments, or reducing earned benefits. Democrats will expand Social Security so that everyAmerican can retire with dignity and respect, including women who are widowed or took timeout of the workforce to care for their children, aging parents, or ailing family members. TheDemocratic Party recognizes that the way Social Security cost-of- living adjustments arecalculated may not always reflect the spending patterns of seniors, particularly thedisproportionate amount they spend on health care expenses. We are committed to exploringalternatives that could better and more equitably serve seniors.

We will make sure Social Security’s guaranteed benefits continue for generations to come byasking those at the top to pay more, and will achieve this goal by taxing some of the income ofpeople above $250,000. The Democratic Party is also committed to providing all necessaryfinancial support for the Social Security Administration so that it can provide timely benefits andhigh-quality service for those it serves. Our plan contrasts starkly with Donald Trump. He hasreferred to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and has called for privatizing it as well asincreasing the retirement age.

Ensure the Health and Safety of All Americans
Democrats have been fighting to secure universal health care for the American people forgenerations, and we are proud to be the party that passed Medicare, Medicaid, and theAffordable Care Act (ACA). Being stronger together means finally achieving that goal. We aregoing to fight to make sure every American has access to quality, affordable health care. We willtackle the problems that remain in our health care system, including cracking down on runawayprescription drug prices and addressing mental health with the same seriousness that we treatphysical health. We will fight Republican efforts to roll back the clock on women’s health andreproductive rights, and stand up for Planned Parenthood. And we will tackle the epidemics ofsubstance abuse and gun violence, which each claim tens of thousands of lives every year.

Securing Universal Health Care
Democrats believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and our health care system shouldput people before profits. Thanks to the hard work of President Obama and Democrats inCongress, we took a critically important step toward the goal of universal health care by passingthe Affordable Care Act, which has covered 20 million more Americans and ensured millionsmore will never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Democrats will neverfalter in our generations-long fight to guarantee health care as a fundamental right for everyAmerican. As part of that guarantee, Americans should be able to access public coverage througha public option, and those over 55 should be able to opt in to Medicare. Democrats will empowerthe states, which are the true laboratories of democracy, to use innovation waivers under theACA to develop unique locally tailored approaches to health coverage. This will includeremoving barriers to states which seek to experiment with plans to ensure universal health care toevery person in their state. By contrast, Donald Trump wants to repeal the ACA, leaving tens ofmillions of Americans without coverage.

For too many of us, health care costs are still too high, even for those with insurance. Andmedical debt is a problem for far too many working families, with one-quarter of Americansreporting that they or someone in their household had problems or an inability to pay medicalbills in the past year. Democrats will also work to end surprise billing and other practices that lead to out-of-control medical debt that place an unconscionable economic strain on Americanhouseholds. We will repeal the excise tax on high-cost health insurance and find revenue tooffset it because we need to contain the long-term growth of health care costs, but should not riskpassing on too much of the burden to workers. Democrats will keep costs down by makingpremiums more affordable, reducing out-of-pocket expenses, and capping prescription drugcosts. And we will fight against insurers trying to impose excessive premium increases.Democrats will fight any attempts by Republicans in Congress to privatize, voucherize, or“phase out” Medicare as we know it. And we will oppose Republican plans to slash funding andblock grant Medicaid and SNAP, which would harm millions of Americans.

We will keep fighting until the ACA’s Medicaid expansion has been adopted in every state.Nineteen states have not yet expanded Medicaid. This means that millions of low-incomeAmericans still lack health insurance and are not getting the care they need. Additionally, healthcare providers, clinics, hospitals, and taxpayers are footing a higher bill when people withoutinsurance visit expensive emergency rooms.

Democrats believe your zip code or census tract should not be a predictor of your health, whichis why we will make health equity a central part of our commitment to revitalizing communitiesleft behind. Democrats believe that all health care services should be culturally and linguisticallyappropriate, and that neither fear nor immigration status should be barriers that impede healthcare access.^[10]

More than 100 million Americans depend onMedicare or Medicaid for their healthcare; withour population aging, that number will increase. Topreserve Medicare and Medicaid, the financing ofthese important programs must be brought undercontrol before they consume most of the federalbudget, including national defense. The good newsis that it can be done, and it can be done withoutendangering the elderly and the needy who dependon those programs. We intend to save Medicare bymodernizing it, empowering its participants, andputting it on a secure financial footing. We willpreserve the promise of Medicaid as well by making that program, designed for 1965 medicine, a vehiclefor good health in an entirely new era.

Medicare’s long-term debt is in the trillions, andit is funded by a workforce that is shrinking relativeto the size of future beneficiaries. Obamacareworsened the situation — and imperiled seniors —by imposing hundreds of billions of dollars in cutsto Medicare providers to pay for its new spending.When a vital program is so clearly headed for a trainwreck, it’s time to put it on a more secure track.That is why we propose these reforms: Impose nochanges for persons 55 or older. Give others theoption of traditional Medicare or transition to apremium-support model designed to strengthenpatient choice, promote cost-saving competitionamong providers, and better guard against thefraud and abuse that now diverts billions of dollarsevery year away from patient care. Guarantee toevery enrollee an income-adjusted contributiontoward a plan of their choice, with catastrophicprotection. Without disadvantaging present retireesor those nearing retirement, set a more realistic agefor eligibility in light of today’s longer life span.

This is an agenda to improve healthcare, notjust to manage its costs. We reject the Democrats’approach of rationing inherent in Obamacare. Werecognize the de facto rationing of healthcarecaused by reduced access to doctors whoincreasingly opt out of participating in Medicareand Medicaid. We will not accept that or any otherapproach which denies care — or lowers its quality— for America’s elderly.

Medicaid presents related, but somewhatdifferent challenges. As the dominant force inthe health market with regard to long-term care,births, and persons with mental illness, it is the nextfrontier of welfare reform. It is simply too big andtoo flawed to be administered from Washington.Most of the vaunted expansion of health insurancecoverage under Obamacare actually has been anunprecedented expansion of the Medicaid rolls inmany states. We applaud the Republican governorsand state legislators who have undertaken the hardwork of modernizing Medicaid. We will give them afree hand to do so by block-granting the programwithout strings. Their initiatives — whether premiumsupports for purchasing insurance, refundable taxcredits, alternatives to hospitalization for chronic patients, disease prevention activities, and otherinnovations — are the best strategy for preservingMedicaid for those who need it the most. Blockgranting Medicaid is particularly needed toaddress mental health care. Mental illness affectspeople from all walks of life, but there has beenlittle success in developing effective system-widemedical models for addressing mental health. For avariety of unique reasons, government is often thefirst frontier for people experiencing mental healthproblems — from first responders who deal withcrises to publicly funded mental health facilitiesand prisons where large numbers of inmatessuffer from mental illnesses. Using block grantswould allow states to experiment with differentsystems to address mental health and developsuccessful models to be replicated in states acrossthe nation. The current federally dictated mentalhealth care regime is wasteful and ineffective, andmoving to a block grant approach would allow forstate and local governments to create solutionsfor individuals and families in desperate need ofhelp in addressing mental illness. We respect thestates’ authority and flexibility to exclude abortionproviders from federal programs such as Medicaidand other healthcare and family planning programsso long as they continue to perform or refer forelective abortions or sell the body parts of abortedchildren.

Saving Social Security
We reject the old maxim that Social Securityis the “Third Rail” of American politics, deadly foranyone who would change it. The Democratic Partystill treats it that way, even though everyone knowsthat its current course will lead to a financial andsocial disaster. Younger Americans have lost all faithin the program and expect little return for whatthey are paying into it. As the party of America’sfuture, we accept the responsibility to preserve andmodernize a system of retirement security forgedin an old industrial era beyond the memory of mostAmericans. Current retirees and those close toretirement can be assured of their benefits. Of themany reforms being proposed, all options shouldbe considered to preserve Social Security. AsRepublicans, we oppose tax increases and believein the power of markets to create wealth and to help secure the future of our Social Security system.Saving Social Security is more than a challenge. Itis our moral obligation to those who trusted in thegovernment’s word.^[10]

The passage of the 1996 Welfare Act by Congress and its signing by the President confronts us with hard choices. Democrats and Republicans seem to be saying the country cannot afford to care for children and poor mothers. In ending over fifty years of federal policy guaranteeing cash assistance for poor children, Congress has set in motion a radical experiment that will have a profound impact on the lives of the weakest members of our society. How will state, city and county governments, local communities, businesses and religious institutions — all of us — respond?

We have a special responsibility to the health and wellbeing of the young. Yet we see the federal safety net being removed and replaced with limited and potentially harsh state welfare programs. How will social services be adequately provided if local resources are already stretched thin?

We believe our community priorities must first protect the young and helpless. Yet how will state legislatures and agencies, under pressure from more powerful interests, react? We believe local decision-making is important, but we realize, as we learned during the civil rights era, that strict federal standards must guide state actions in providing basic protections. As the richest nation in history, we should not condemn millions of children to a life of poverty, while corporate welfare is increased to historic highs.

The Green Party opposes the privatization of Social Security. It is critical that the public protections of Social Security are not privatized and subjected to increased risk. The bottom 20% of American senior citizens get roughly 80% of their income from Social Security, and without Social Security, nearly 70% of black elderly and 60% of Latino elderly households would be in poverty.

D. Welfare: A Commitment to Ending Poverty
An unjust society is an unsustainable society. When communities are stressed by poverty, violence and despair, our ability to meet the challenges of the post industrial age are critically impaired. A holistic, future-focused perspective on how we distribute resources in this country would consider the effects of such distribution not just on our present needs, but on the seventh generation to come.

It is time for a radical shift in our attitude toward support for families, children, the poor and the disabled. Such support must not be given grudgingly; it is the right of those presently in need and an investment in our future. We must take an uncompromising position that the care and nurture of children, elders and the disabled are essential to a healthy, peaceful, and sustainable society. We should recognize that the work of their caregivers is of social and economic value, and reward it accordingly. Ensuring that children and their caregivers have access to an adequate, secure standard of living should form the cornerstone of our economic priorities. Only then can we hope to build our future on a foundation of healthy, educated children who are raised in an atmosphere of love and security.

a. All people have a right to food, housing, medical care, jobs that pay a living wage, education, and support in times of hardship.

b. Work performed outside the monetary system has inherent social and economic value, and is essential to a healthy, sustainable economy and peaceful communities. Such work includes: child and elder care; homemaking; voluntary community service; continuing education; participating in government; and the arts.

c. We call for restoration of a federally funded entitlement program to support children, families, the unemployed, elderly and disabled, with no time limit on benefits.

d. This program should be funded through the existing welfare budget, reductions in military spending and corporate subsidies, and a fair, progressive income tax.

e. We call for a graduated supplemental income, or negative income tax, that would maintain all individual adult incomes above the poverty level, regardless of employment or marital status.

f. We advocate reinvesting a significant portion of the military budget into family support, living-wage job development, and work training programs. Publicly funded work training and education programs should have a goal of increasing employment options at finding living-wage jobs.

g. We support public funding for the development of living-wage jobs in community and environmental service. For example, environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing. We oppose enterprise zone giveaways, which benefit corporations more than inner-city communities.

h. The accumulation of individual wealth in the U.S. has reached grossly unbalanced proportions. It is clear that we cannot rely on the rich to regulate their profit-making excesses for the good of society through "trickle-down economics." We must take aggressive steps to restore a fair distribution of income. We support tax incentives for businesses that apply fair employee wage distribution standards, and income tax policies that restrict the accumulation of excessive individual wealth.

i. Forcing welfare recipients to accept jobs that pay wages below a living wage drives wages down and exploits workers for private profit at public expense. We reject workfare as being a form of indentured servitude.

j. Corporations receiving public subsidies must provide jobs that pay a living wage, observe basic workers' rights, and agree to affirmative action policies.^[10]

Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals. We believe members of society will become even more charitable and civil society will be strengthened as government reduces its activity in this realm.^[10]