Commentary: Cruz puts programs at risk

I believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to succeed here in Texas. To have the opportunity to get ahead, take care of your family and retire with dignity. But Sen. Ted Cruz is leading the fight to make that harder.

I was raised by a single mom who was a public school teacher. She sometimes worked two jobs to make ends meet. I remember what it was like to go to the grocery store, swipe our debit card and say a little prayer or those times we had to put things back because we couldn’t afford them that week.

The odds that I’d be where I am today were small. My story is only possible in Texas because of the teachers, coaches and good folks at the YMCA who helped my mom raise me and gave me the opportunity to earn a scholarship to play football at Baylor, make it to the NFL, law school and Congress.

When it came time for my mom to retire, she had earned every bit of her retirement benefits, and to this day she relies on Medicare and lives on the fixed income of a retired Texas teacher. No one has to tell me how important these benefits are to our seniors.

More than 4.7 million Texans rely on Medicare to get the health care they need. 4.6 million Texans rely on Social Security benefits every month, and retirees account for 70% of those recipients. Our seniors earned these benefits through a lifetime of hard work, which is why I’ve always fought to lower costs and protect these programs.

I have worked hard to strengthen and protect these foundational programs that hardworking Texans pay into every month. In Congress, I worked to cap the cost of insulin at $35, out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000, allow Medicare the ability to negotiate lower costs of certain drugs for seniors, and require pharmaceutical companies that raise prices faster than inflation to pay Medicare back. I helped make vaccines free for all Medicare beneficiaries. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, these reforms will result in an average savings of $400 for 1.3 million Texans on Medicare. I am proud that I took on Big Pharma and helped get this done, lowering costs for seniors and strengthening Medicare’s finances.

Ted Cruz voted against this legislation, and helped stop a bipartisan amendment to cap the cost of insulin at $35 for Texans with private insurance. This is no surprise, as Cruz raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from Big Pharma. He has made it his life’s work to cut earned Social Security and Medicare benefits, supports weakening Medicare and repeatedly called for privatizing and cutting Social Security.

He supports raising the retirement age for both programs, including for people who are about to retire. Cruz even backed privatization plans that would raise existing costs, and cut Medicare Part D – which helps seniors pay for prescription drugs.

It’s hard enough to retire with dignity now, but if Ted Cruz gets his way, it would be a nightmare for our seniors who’ve paid into these programs all their lives.

Texans need a senator who understands what families and retired Texans face when costs go up, not somebody who will abandon us when the lights go out to fly to Cancun, or who has spent his career trying to cut programs that Texans rely on.

Ted Cruz has shown us time and again that he only cares about himself.

I believe there is another way. We can keep investing in Medicare to strengthen it and lower costs. We can build on the progress we made with prescription drug reform. We can protect Social Security by working together and reaching across the aisle to protect it for future generations.

The good news is that we don’t have to be stuck with Cruz in November. We have a choice in this election.

I promise to be a senator who will fight for all 30 million Texans and your freedoms — including the freedom of our seniors to retire with dignity and the Social Security and Medicare benefits they have earned.

Colin Allred, D-Dallas, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate from Texas.