{"id":111035,"date":"2020-02-12T10:52:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T15:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=111035"},"modified":"2020-02-12T10:52:53","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T15:52:53","slug":"brindisi-hosts-older-americans-town-hall-at-north-utica-senior-citizens-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=111035","title":{"rendered":"Brindisi hosts older americans town hall at North Utica Senior Citizens Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Rep. Anthony Brindisi<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Congressman talks Medicare, Social Security and prescription\ndrug costs with seniors in Utica<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressman Anthony Brindisi (NY-22) visited North Utica\nSenior Citizens Center to host an older Americans town hall. Brindisi visited\nwith the older Americans about issues of importance to them\nincluding the cost of prescription drugs, the stability of Social\nSecurity, and his efforts to protect Medicare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI take the title of \u2018representative\u2019 seriously – that means\nbeing open and accessible and meeting with people in every community to make\nsure their voices are heard,\u201d Brindisi said. \u201cSome older people are unable\nto travel for more traditional town halls so I make it a priority to visit\nsenior centers and homes across Upstate New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeniors know that I will never stop fighting to bring down\nprescription drug costs and strengthen Medicare and Social Security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Brindisi joined Democrats and Republicans\nto pass bipartisan prescription drug reform legislation<\/a> through\nthe House of Representatives. The Lower Drug Costs Now Act would\nallow Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies and cap\nout-of-pocket costs for the millions of Americans enrolled in Medicare Part D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to AARP, the average annual cost of prescription\ndrugs rose nearly 58 percent between 2012 and 2017. Prices in 2019 increased\nfor 3,400 drugs on the market, with an average price increase of 10.5 percent,\na rate roughly five times the inflation rate. In New York\u2019s 22nd Congressional\ndistrict alone, H.R. 3 would help lower out-of-pocket costs for the 117,000\npeople enrolled in Medicare Part D and another 467,000 who have private health\ninsurance. It would also allow Medicare to negotiate directly with\npharmaceutical companies to increase competition and bring costs down for\npatients. H.R. 3 would lower the cost of prescription drugs from cancer\nmedication to insulin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, Brindisi touted legislation he helped\nintroduce to bring down the cost of prescription drugs. Brindisi worked with\nRepublican Congressman John Joyce (PA-13) to introduce the Ensuring Timely\nAccess to Generics Act (H.R. 2455), a bipartisan bill to crack down on\ntactics used by pharmaceutical companies to delay generic drugs from coming to\nmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Brindisi fought to protect older Americans from\nage discrimination by passing the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act<\/a>. The\nbipartisan legislation lowers the burden of proof for age discrimination cases.\nCurrently, older Americans face a tougher burden of proof for age\ndiscrimination than other employment discrimination cases. According to census\ndata, New York\u2019s 22nd congressional district is slightly older than New York\nState average. Many older Americans are facing discrimination in the workplace.\nAccording to AARP, 6 in 10 older workers have experienced or seen age discrimination\nin the workplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Brindisi held a town hall in every county in New\nYork\u2019s 22nd district. He plans to do so again in 2020. Earlier this week,\nhe held two town halls in Broome County. If you are a senior and are interested\nin having Congressman Brindisi visit your community, email brindisi.scheduling@mail.house.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressman talks Medicare, Social Security and prescription drug costs with seniors in Utica Congressman Anthony Brindisi (NY-22) visited North Utica Senior Citizens Center to host an older Americans town hall. Brindisi visited with the older Americans about issues of importance to them including the cost of prescription drugs, the stability of Social Security, and his efforts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23810,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-sST","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Rep-Anthony-Brindisi-Congress.jpg?fit=220%2C220&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/102245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}