WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today issued the following statement in response to the release of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) 2014 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report, which concluded that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has helped strengthen Medicare but that the Social Security Disability Insurance Trust Fund (DI) will become insolvent in 2016:

“Social Security's programs are a vital lifeline for millions of Americans, including thousands of people in Maine. As elected officials, we are stewards of these critical programs and it’s our responsibility to preserve and strengthen them for future generations,” Senator King said. “The Affordable Care Act has done just that for Medicare, but today’s report also reminds us that we have no time to waste in addressing Social Security’s other financial challenges. We know the DI program is going to become insolvent in 2016. We know we have to fix it. So let’s take off the election-year blinders, roll-up our sleeves, and get to work in a bipartisan manner on behalf of the American people.”                                                                                                                                  

According to AARP, more than 300,000 Maine citizens receive Social Security benefits with more than one in three of Maine retirees relying on Social Security as their sole source of income.

Today’s report once again found that, without Congressional action, the Social Security Disability Insurance trust fund will become depleted in 2016, at which point beneficiaries would take a 20 percent reduction in benefits, impacting more than 70,000 people in Maine. The report also determined that, in part because of the Affordable Care Act’s cost-reduction provisions, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is now set to be solvent until 2030, an increase of 4 years from last year’s report. The solvency of the Trust Fund is now 13 years longer than it was previous to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which the Trustees said in 2010 had “substantially improved” the financial status of the Trust Fund. To read the report, click HERE.