Page 14 - 2018PHAVoterGuide

District 14 – Fayette, Greene, Washington, Westmoreland
(part) (OPEN SEAT)

Bibiana Boerio (D)

We must ensure a high quality of life for our senior citizens, providing for physical,
emotional, legal, and other basic needs. As the number of elderly Americans rises,
we must find ways to provide quality care in an efficient, effective and safe manner,
and home healthcare offers opportunities to meet those goals. Medicare should be
expanded to cover in-home personal care. Nationally, our programs for seniors are
threatened. The current president’s 2019 proposed budget reduces support with cuts
putting millions of vulnerable seniors in harm’s way. We need watchdogs that will
protect seniors’ needs. I hope to become a sponsor of the Older Americans Act, and I
would fight for adequate funding in my district and fair distribution throughout the
country.

I will fight for the needs of our at-risk populations, starting with: Fighting efforts to privatize social
security or Medicare; Looking for solutions to fix the rising costs of healthcare; Support of Social Security
Expansion Act; Supporting community efforts to establish senior centers and adult day-care centers
that can become hubs for servicing the needs of seniors and their caretakers; and Supporting Medicare
upgrades.

The Senate has established a Committee on Aging, but I have found nothing comparable in the House.
I would support establishment of a similar, bi-partisan committee in the House. As a society we have a
choice. I have spoken with hundreds of elderly men and women throughout PA-14. For too many, every
month is a challenge to make ends meet. They keep working long after they wanted to retire. That’s not
how we should treat those who have done so much for us. Home healthcare should be an even bigger
part of the range of actions we take to support our seniors.

Guy Reschenthaler (R)
The candidate did not provide a response to PHA.

District 15 – Armstrong, Butler (part), Cambria (part) Cameron,

Centre (part), Clarion, Clearfield, Elk, Forest, Indiana,

Jefferson, McKean, Venango, Warren

Glenn Thompson (R) (Incumbent)
Recognizing the budgetary constraints on Medicare and the fact that 10,000 baby
boomers are enrolling in the program every day — and will for the next 13 years — it
is essential to find ways to innovate for the prolonged solvency of the program. We
need to recognize that beneficiaries are not a simple calculation but rather individuals
with unique healthcare needs and histories. As former healthcare provider, I know
firsthand that when a benefit is underutilized or denied, outcomes are almost certain
14 to be negative for the patient and have an additional effect of increasing costs through
hospitalization or long-term care. We must begin to look at the equation through a