AARP Exclusive: Presidential Candidates Talk Social Security, Medicare and more

Millions of American workers have no way to save for retirement through their employers. If elected, what steps will you take to help American workers save for retirement?

TRUMP: The sad part is with Biden, inflation has been so devastating that where people were saving with me because they had low interest rates and no inflation — don’t forget, I had low interest rates, and I had essentially no inflation — they have high interest rates and the worst inflation we’ve ever had. That is a killer for people who have done it the right way. And the right way is to go out, save your money and you’re going to have money and you’re going to make interest on your money and make investments with your money. Those people have been absolutely destroyed by inflation and what’s happened. The people that saved money, that was supposed to be the American dream except the American dream turned out to be the American nightmare for the people that did it right. The people that saved — you’re supposed to save in this country; it’s always been that way — the people that saved got killed by inflation. They were actually taking money out of their accounts instead of putting money back into their accounts.

HARRIS: Well, it starts with making sure that we protect Social Security, knowing that for our seniors that is their only source of income.

The work that I’ve done over my career has also been to protect pensions. Both the president and I and in my long-standing work understand the need to make sure that people who have earned those benefits are secure and that they are guaranteed.

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Americans pay some of the highest prescription drug prices. If elected, what will you do to bring prices down?

HARRIS: A big piece of it is allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices. A big piece of it is really just having the willingness and the courage, frankly, to take on Big Pharma, which I have done in my career, both when I was attorney general for two terms and now as vice president.

What we know is, my goodness, there have been a number of our seniors who, over the years, have had to get on a bus to go to Canada to get their prescription medication. Prescription drugs don’t have to be as expensive as they are. The prices are based on a design that we’ve had in our country that protects Big Pharma and ­allows them to put profit over what is in people’s best interest.

TRUMP: As a result of the aggressive actions I took during my first year in the White House, drug prices declined more than they had in half a century in 2018 alone. I was also proud to institute rules giving seniors $35 EpiPens and insulin, allowing prescription drugs to be imported from Canada for the first time, and took steps to ensure that Americans would not pay more than wealthy Europeans for the same drugs. When reelected as president, I will continue my efforts to protect Americans from unaffordable drug prices and ensure seniors are protected from the massive Medicare premium increases resulting from the Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act. I will keep any drug savings in Medicare, and I will finish what we started in my first term.

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Former President Donald Trump, right, and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, at a campaign rally.

Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Moving on to Medicare for a moment, Medicare provides critical health coverage for older Americans. If elected, how will you protect Medicare from benefit cuts, and how might you improve the program?

TRUMP: What we have to do is make our country successful again. This has to do with Medicare and Social Security and other things. We have to let our country become successful, make our country successful again, and we’ll be able to do that. We have tremendous opportunities like as an example, with what I call the “liquid gold” under our feet. We have more oil and gas than any other country in the world by far, and we don’t use it. We use a very small portion of it. We will be bigger than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, and we will be able to make our country so successful that these questions will not — they’ll really just not come to the fore. Growth is a very big factor in everything I say. We can grow our country. Our country hasn’t been growing. We can grow our country at the bottom line.

HARRIS: I will always fight to protect and strengthen Medicare for this and future generations. That includes securing the Medicare trust fund and making sure that big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, which, by the way, they can afford to pay. Also, if [my opponent] had succeeded in repealing the ACA [Affordable Care Act], which he tried 60 times to do when in office, he would have brought back the Medicare “donut hole” gap. AARP was an incredible leader on the donut hole issue. That gap for prescription drugs would be put back in place without the protection of the ACA, not to mention taking away pre­cancer and diabetes screenings, what we fought so successfully for; to get Medicare to make sure that every senior gets a free ­annual wellness checkup. I pledge to fight to protect it.

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Americans over the age of 50 continue to pay the highest health care costs. If elected, how would you ensure that older Americans have access to affordable health care?

HARRIS: A big part of access is affordability; so is bringing down the cost of prescription drugs for everyone, including seniors. We fought to do that but ran into some roadblocks in Congress. My plan in terms of helping seniors under the age of 65 includes what we would do to save on average as much as $800 a year on premiums.

Also, medical debt has been a big area of focus for me and eliminating medical debt from credit scores, which can be all the difference whether a senior or anyone could get a lease on an apartment, much less all the other things that they need access to.

TRUMP: We’re going to make sure that Americans are able to work [to access health care]. But we’re going to make sure that they’re not going to have to work. We’re going to take care of them. But if they want [to work], that would be a great asset. You know, we lose some of the best people we have because they think they’re going to retire at a certain age, and the fact is, they really don’t want to retire. So we’re going to incentivize people if they want to go out into the workforce. But [if not], we’re going to take care of them. We’re going to make all of our programs strong, and we’re going to make our country strong.

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We know older workers often face age discrimination when getting or keeping their jobs. If elected, how would you combat age discrimination and help older workers who need or want to continue working?

TRUMP: We’re going to make sure that they’re allowed to work. They’re some of the best workers you can get, and we’re going to make sure that there is no tax on Social Security benefits, which is a big deal. People wait for years to get Social Security, and then they get there, and inflation has destroyed them, so we’re going to have no tax on Social Security, which is a very, very big event and nobody else is talking about it. You know they pay tax on this small amount of money relatively that they’re getting, and yet inflation has destroyed them. Very unfair, so we’re going to have no tax on Social Security for seniors.

Harris: Maybe my experience as a prosecutor is kicking in, but it’s really important to make sure that there are consequences and accountability for age discrimination. You will remember under my opponent’s administration, they started to defund offices of civil rights. I’m going to make sure that those offices of civil rights are funded so that the investigations and the consequences for discrimination can occur.

From my days being the DA and then attorney general, I strengthened elder abuse work that included discrimination, going after nursing homes, collaborating with AARP throughout those years and dealing with issues of discrimination that happen around mortgages and reverse mortgages. I also should tell you that I’ve been doing some work on AI and making sure that employers cannot use AI tools to discriminate against anyone, ­including older Americans on the job or looking for a job.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, at a campaign rally.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Many Americans, especially in rural areas, do not have access to high-speed internet. How would you ensure that Americans have access to affordable high-speed internet?

HARRIS: Access to high-speed internet is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. I’m proud as vice president that we got $90 billion to connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet. I have traveled the country as vice president to ­rural communities and various communities to make sure that not only is the policy sound and relevant to all communities, including our seniors, but to make sure that the implementation is speedy and happening. That includes also the work that I did in the leadership around the ­Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped 23 million households across the country, including many seniors, save anywhere from $30 to $75 a month on their internet bill.

TRUMP: We’ll build out our ­internet system. Biden has done nothing. He’s done very little on that, but we’re going to build out our internet system. It’s moving. We had it really going along good, and then a lot of it was stopped, but we’re going to be building out our internet system. They have to have access.

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Criminals who perpetrate fraud through spam calls and texts target older Americans, resulting in the loss of billions of dollars of their hard-earned nest eggs. If elected, how would you reduce fraud like this?

TRUMP: We’re going to go through our departments, our law enforcement, and we’re going to be very tough on it. People are being scammed all the time in so many different ways. We’re going to be very, very tough on protecting our senior citizens, and it will happen. Many things we’re going to do, but we have to let law enforcement get involved. Right now, there is no retribution. They can do whatever they want. They can steal their money. There is no retribution. There will be retribution to people that hurt our senior citizens.

HARRIS: From my work over many years, going back to when I was elected DA of San Francisco in 2004, I strengthened the elder abuse work that we were doing. We did a lot of outreach. I have too often seen seniors, especially those who are isolated, who may not have family, become susceptible to scams and are reluctant to let anyone know for fear that they will be thought less of. When the bad guys, the fraudsters, know that we’re watching and that there will be serious and severe accountability, they are less likely to engage in the behavior because they know that the consequences will be very real.

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If elected, what is the most important thing that you could do to help improve the lives of older Americans?

HARRIS: There are many things, to be honest. My day one priority is to make sure that people are able to live with dignity and have the care that they deserve.

I think that over the last decade, and frankly since my opponent hit the scene in this way, there is a perverse notion that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of who [you] lift up. That means doing the work that I’ve done my whole career to stand up for the rights of older Americans, to deal with cases of elder abuse as well as lifting up their ability to have a good quality of life, including bringing down the cost of prescription drugs. I will be paying attention to affordable housing. Part of my plan is to build 3 million more housing units before the end of my term. I have many priorities on day one to help our seniors and their children and grandchildren.

TRUMP: The biggest thing I can tell you is we’re going to let people know loud and clear that Social Security is not changing. But what I’m going to do is we’re going to create energy like nobody has ever had in this country. With me, we were energy independent, but we are going to become energy dominant. We’re going to make a tremendous amount of money. We’re going to pay down debt. We’re going to reduce taxes. I mean the taxes that we’ve been able to cut — it’s the largest tax cut in the history of our country, and we still have a ways to go with that. That’s going to be very helpful. We’re going to make sure our seniors are taken care of 100 percent. Don’t forget, I’m a senior. We’re going to make our seniors happy, healthy and strong.

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