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Democratic

John Sarbanes

Congressman John Sarbanes has represented Maryland’s Third Congressional District in the U.S. Congress since 2007.

He currently serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. He serves as Vice Chair of the House Subcommittee on Health. Congressman Sarbanes also serves on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and its Subcommittee on Government Operations. He chairs the Democracy Reform Task Force, which has assembled HR1, the For The People Act, to reform and strengthen our democracy.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Congressman Sarbanes has experience working in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. He and his family live in Towson, giving him the opportunity to drive home every night and hear from the people he serves in Congress. Listening to their concerns allows him to better represent Maryland and has shaped his work in the House of Representatives.

SENIORS

Our seniors make enormous contributions to our civic life and the success and prosperity of our nation. That’s why Congressman Sarbanes is working to ensure that seniors are treated with respect, receive the health care and retirement benefits they have earned and continue to have meaningful opportunities to contribute to the workforce and our communities.

Making Health Care More Accessible and Affordable

We owe it to our nation’s seniors to ensure that Medicare offers comprehensive coverage of health services with affordable premiums. Congressman Sarbanes has consistently supported health care reforms that benefit our nation’s seniors in a variety of ways.

  • Strengthening Medicare: Congressman Sarbanes has continually fought to curb Medicare Part B premiums and expand coverage for health care services while ensuring the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund.

 

  • Lowering Prescription Drug Costs: Congressman Sarbanes proudly voted for the Inflation Reduction Act which, for the first time, gives Medicare the ability to directly negotiate lower drug prices for seniors, restricts how much pharmaceutical companies can raise prices on their drugs and caps out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors at $2,000 per year.

 

  • Improving Access to Care: Congressman Sarbanes has worked to ensure seniors can access crucial support and services. He has advocated for building on the American Rescue Plan, which increased federal matching funds for Medicaid to help more seniors receive home- and community-based care services and expanded coverage of telehealth services in the Medicare program, to lift up our seniors.

 

  • Expanding Research to Find Cures: Congressman Sarbanes is a strong supporter of legislation to invest in lifesaving biomedical research that will help Americans lead longer, healthier lives. He consistently advocates for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and other public health efforts to accelerate breakthroughs and find cures.

 

  • Protecting Seniors’ Access to Their Doctors: With Congressman Sarbanes’s support, Congress has passed legislation to preserve seniors’ access to their doctors and provide increases in Medicare’s physician payments so that seniors can keep their trusted medical providers.

 

Preserving Social Security and Strengthening Retirement Security

Social Security has made it possible for millions of seniors to live with security and dignity in their retirement. Congressman Sarbanes remains committed to strengthening retirement security for all Americans.

  • Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA): Congressman Sarbanes has cosponsored legislation to create a new formula for calculating COLAs that would better account for costs that disproportionately fall on seniors and increase benefits.

 

  • Extending the Solvency of Social Security: He has also cosponsored legislation to eliminate the contributions cap on earnings subject to the Social Security Payroll tax. This change would extend the solvency of the program for an additional 75 years without adjusting benefits or raising the retirement age. Instead, it would simply require millionaires and billionaires to pay the same rate as everyone else.

 

Expanding Food, Nutrition and Housing & Promoting Community Engagement

Ensuring that seniors have adequate access to food and housing is another top priority for Congressman Sarbanes, and he consistently supports programs that promote seniors’ engagement in communities throughout Maryland.

  • Increasing Availability of Healthy Meals: Congressman Sarbanes is a strong supporter of increased SNAP benefits and robust federal investments in nutrition services for seniors, such as home-delivered meals.

 

  • Providing Safe, Affordable Housing: Every senior deserves a safe, affordable place to live. Congressman Sarbanes has supported efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing and provide an historic expansion of housing assistance programs. Additionally, Congressman Sarbanes voted to provide emergency rental, mortgage and utility relief during the COVID-19 pandemic to help seniors keep roofs over their heads and cover utility costs.

 

  • Experience Corps: Congressman Sarbanes is a champion of the Experience Corps Program - a partnership of the AARP Foundation and the AmeriCorps Program - that nationally deploys 3,000 senior volunteers into elementary schools to tutor students in reading. Baltimore boasts one of the largest chapters of Experience Corps in the nation.