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For Immediate Release
October, 24 2025, 10:17am EDT
Contact:
Lisa Cutler, lcutler@retiredamericans.org
Statement by Retiree Leader Richard Fiesta on the 2.8% COLA Increase for Social Security Beneficiaries
The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, regarding the announcement that there will be a 2.8% cost-of-living (COLA) benefit increase for millions of Social Security beneficiaries, disabled veterans and federal retirees next year:
“The 74.5 million Americans who rely on Social Security welcome any increase in their monthly benefits. But let’s be clear, millions of older Americans will still struggle to afford housing, food, utilities, and prescription drugs.
“The average retired worker will see about $52 more per month next year. Yet nearly half of that increase will be wiped out by the higher Medicare Part B premium, which is projected to rise to $206 a month in January. That’s $31 more than in 2025, and would be the first time the premium has exceeded $200.
“Strengthening and expanding Social Security must be a national priority. If billionaires and the wealthiest 1 percent pay their fair share, we can boost benefits for everyone and guarantee the program’s solvency for future generations.
“Instead of working to protect Social Security, too many members of Congress and Trump Administration officials are pushing to raise the retirement age, cut benefits, and even privatize the program. Older Americans have earned these benefits through a lifetime of work; they should not have to fight to keep them.”
The Alliance for Retired Americans is a national organization with 4.4 million members that advocates for retirement security for all Americans.
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'People Are Going to Die' If Republicans Let ACA Subsidies End, Warns AOC
The progressive congresswoman also warned that "an extension with abortion restrictions kills women."
Dec 12, 2025
The US House of Representatives is set to vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies next week, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Friday that if Republicans let the ACA tax credits expire at the end of the year, "people are going to die."
The New York Democrat spoke to reporters in Washington, DC a day after only four Republicans voted with Democratic senators in an unsuccessful effort to pass legislation extending ACA subsidies, as over 20 million Americans face a surge in health insurance premiums. A GOP bill to replace the subsidies with annual payments to tax-advantaged health savings accounts also failed.
"We have to remember who's in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House. Republicans have a House majority, they have a Senate majority, and Donald Trump is president of the United States, and JD Vance is vice president of the United States," Ocasio-Cortez said in remarks shared by her and multiple news sources on social media.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) "refused to engage" in a debate on the looming healthcare crisis and "kept Republicans home for over a month so that they would not negotiate," she said. Trump and Vance "did the same thing—they stuck their heads in the sand for the entirety of a... government shutdown where we were urging them to come to a solution on extensions of ACA premium subsidies," she continued, calling for a "clean" extension while the GOP sorts out its supposed healthcare plan.
Rep. @AOC on healthcare subsidy proposals: "An extension with abortion restrictions kills women." pic.twitter.com/HOCqHMGemp
— Forbes Breaking News (@ForbesTVNews) December 12, 2025
"People are gonna be kicked off of their insurance. Open enrollment is happening right now, and there are going to be millions of Americans that are affected—that aren't gonna be able to go to a doctor, aren't gonna be able to afford their prescription drugs, because of some petty fight in Washington," the congresswoman said, noting Democratic efforts to force votes on an extension.
As NBC News reported Thursday, early enrollment data from several states shows that "more people appear to be walking away from Affordable Care Act coverage or switching to cheaper plans for 2026 compared to this time last year," which "could reflect signs of financial strain for people who can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars more in monthly premiums once enhanced federal subsidies expire at the end of the year."
Demanding that her colleagues in DC recognize the urgency of the issue, Ocasio-Cortez—who supports Medicare for All—said Friday that "I don't understand why they can't just extend these subsidies so that we can save people's lives while they figure out whatever their political food fight is."
AOC also pushed back against GOP efforts to restrict reproductive healthcare in an ACA subsidy bill, saying "an extension with abortion restrictions kills women—so no, I'm going to allow this Republican majority to kill women in this country so that they can try to do whatever their victory lap is. I will not accept women, and the lives of women, as some political cost for them being able to extend these things. Reproductive care is healthcare. Period."
Since the right-wing US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and GOP-led states further restricted reproductive rights, multiple stories have emerged from places including Georgia and Texas exemplifying how "Republican abortion bans kill women."
After Johnson met with the House GOP's "Five Families" on Friday, he is expected to allow a floor vote to extend the subsidies next week and, according to Punchbowl News, is considering giving moderates an option without abortion funding restrictions.
As Politico reported Friday evening:
[GOP] leaders ultimately expect the extension vote to fail, resulting in skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans when the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
Instead, according to House Republican leadership aides, Republicans are preparing to roll out a healthcare framework that would allow businesses that fund their own health plans to purchase "stop-loss" policies—which would protect businesses from going bankrupt from just a few unexpectedly expensive insurance claims.
It also would appropriate funds to pay for "cost-sharing reductions" in Obamacare and include some elements of a separate legislative proposal designed to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers—companies that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and large employers.
Like Ocasio-Cortez—who has faced mounting calls to launch a 2028 primary challenge to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) over his handling of the March funding fight and recent shutdown—the upper chamber's top Democrat put the blame squarely on Republicans after both bills failed to advance on Thursday.
"Republicans must answer for why people will lose coverage. Republicans must answer why families see premiums double and triple over the next year," Schumer said. "Democrats' focus does not change. We fought like hell to stop these hikes, and we're going to continue to fight like hell to bring costs down for the American people on healthcare, on housing, on electric rates, on groceries."
"But Republicans are fighting like hell to send those costs right through the roof," he added. "They're fighting like hell to kick people off insurance. They're fighting like hell to cut taxes and give sweet giveaways to billionaires and the ultrarich. January 1st is coming. Republicans are responsible for what happens next. This is their crisis now, and they're going to have to answer for it."
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Another Palestinian Infant Dies of Hypothermia in Storm-Battered Gaza
"Palestinian babies freeze to death as shelters and lifesaving humanitarian aid—located just a few miles away—for 1 million civilians is blocked by Israel," noted one journalist.
Dec 12, 2025
A second Palestinian infant and a young girl died of hypothermia in Gaza as heavy rains and flooding—whose effects are exacerbated by Israel's genocidal annihilation and ongoing siege of the coastal strip—raised the death toll from Storm Byron to at least 16.
Taim Al-Khawaja—who was several months old—died in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, while 9-year-old Hadeel al-Masri died in a shelter west of Gaza City, according to local officials. Their deaths follow that of Rahaf Abu Jazar, an 8-month-old who died Thursday of exposure after floodwaters inundated her family’s tent in Khan Younis.
At least five other people were killed when a building in Beit Lahia collapsed amid the storm, and two others were killed when a wall collapsed onto tents housing displaced Palestinians in the Remal neighorhood of Gaza City. According to Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO), at least 13 buildings have collapsed and more than 27,000 tents have been destroyed or left uninhabitable by Byron's winds, rain, and floodwater.
While farmers in neighboring Israel welcomed the torrential rains, which delivered relief from drought conditions, the storm is devastating Palestinians already reeling and weakened from nearly 800 days of war and siege. Israel's US-backed onslaught has left more than 250,000 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing and 2 million more starved, sickened, or displaced. Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians are currently living in tents or other makeshift shelters.
The recent hypothermia deaths evoked horrific memories of the past two winters in Gaza, when more than a dozen Palestinians—most of them infants and children—died from hypothermia caused by exposure. While many Israelis and their supporters abroad point to the relatively mild Mediterranean winters in an effort to deny these deaths, experts note that hypothermia can be deadly at temperatures over 60°F (15°C) in overexposed conditions such as those in Gaza.
Reporting from Gaza, Al Jazeera's Ibrahim al-Khalili said Friday that genocide-ravaged Gazans are now enduring “an added layer of suffering."
“The tents are collapsing. The cold is unbearable. Basically, they don’t have anywhere to go. What is unfolding is devastating,” he said. “It’s not just a storm; it’s a new wave of displacement even after the war has stopped. Many people here told me that a new war has really begun after this flooding, and people are being forced to flee whatever fragile shelters they had.”
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Friday called the recent exposure deaths a "continuation of the war of extermination."
“The successive collapses of homes bombed during the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, caused by the storm, and the resulting deaths, reflect the unprecedented scale of the humanitarian disaster left by this criminal Zionist war,” he said.
Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told Agence France-Presse Friday that Gazans are also enduring "absolutely appalling hygiene and sanitary conditions."
"There aren't enough toilets; there are places—I saw some in Gaza City—where large pools of water are essentially open sewers right next to the displacement camps," he added.
While the shaky two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has somewhat eased the Israeli blockade on Gaza, the GMO said Friday that “the occupation continues to close crossings and prevent the entry of humanitarian aid and materials that could provide shelter."
“This includes blocking the entry of 300,000 tents, prefabricated mobile homes, and caravans," the agency added.
The #Gaza Strip has been left flooded by #StormByron, destroying already damaged buildings and causing additional loss of life.MSF is concerned about the upcoming winter and heavy rain.Caroline Seguin, Emergency Coordinator, updates:
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— Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (@msf.ca) December 12, 2025 at 2:02 PM
In a statement Friday, Doctors Without Borders Gaza emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin said that the charity is "very, very worried about the next month with the winter coming and the heavy rain."
"Last year we saw a huge increase in respiratory infections for children, diarrhea as well, and of course all the wounded that are living inside the tents will have big difficulties to heal their wounds and will have probably an increase of infection for the wound of the wounded," Seguin noted. "It's near to be not possible to live in this conditions."
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As RFK Pushes Vaccine Misinformation, Measles Cases Surge in South Carolina
The US is at risk of losing its measles-eradicated status early next year, according to Scientific American.
Dec 12, 2025
US Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Friday demanded that the Trump administration "stop lying and follow the science" as an outbreak of measles in South Carolina grew and officials warned that low vaccination rates in the affected area likely mean the crisis will continue worsening.
Since the outbreak began in October in Spartanburg County, near the state's northern border, the highly infectious disease has sickened at least 129 people. The vast majority of people who have been infected have not been inoculated against measles, which is 97% preventable via the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot—which has been erroneously attacked for years by anti-vaccine activists including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As President Donald Trump and Kennedy "push deadly anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, measles is making a comeback across America," said Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Friday. "People will die because of this."
At least three people, including two children, have already died this year in US measles outbreaks
More than 1,900 measles cases and 47 outbreaks have been reported across the country in 2025, compared with 285 cases across 16 outbreaks last year.
In South Carolina, more than 250 people have been exposed to the disease in schools, a healthcare facility, and a church, forcing dozens of unvaccinated children to quarantine for 21 days; some were exposed twice and had to be isolated for two separate three-week periods.
“That’s a significant amount of time,” Linda Bell, the state's epidemiologist, said at a recent press conference. “Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment.”
But Spartanburg County's ongoing outbreak is being driven by “lower-than-hoped-for vaccination coverage,” Bell said.
Public health experts consider a 95% vaccination rate to be the level at which the spread of measles can be eliminated in a community. Only about 90% of students in the county had all required childhood immunizations. South Carolina allows religious exemptions for school immunization requirements. Many of the schools where students have quarantined have vaccination rates "well below 90%," the New York Times reported.
Across South Carolina, MMR vaccination rates among schoolchildren has fallen significantly since 2020, from 96% to 93.5%.
Kennedy has been a longtime denier of vaccine science. In 2019, his anti-vaccine group, Children's Health Defense, tried to sue New York state over its vaccine requirement, which is one of just five in the country that doesn't allow for nonmedical exemptions.
In April, Kennedy visited a Texas community where two unvaccinated children had died of measles and acknowledged in a social media post that "the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."
“Vaccination continues to be the best way to prevent the disruption that measles is causing to people’s education, to employment.”
But during his visit he also promoted, without evidence, two therapeutic treatments that one vaccine expert told NPR are "valueless" in treating measles. In 2023 Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan that the vaccine was not linked to a decline in deaths.
He has recently continued fueling overall skepticism about immunizations, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel he assembled advising that newborn babies whose mothers test negative for hepatitis B should not receive a dose of a vaccine for the disease—sparking fear among public health experts that major progress in reducing childhood cases of the disease over the past three decades will be reversed.
In November the CDC website was changed to say a link between vaccines and autism—a theory that has long been debunked—cannot be ruled out. Two months earlier, as measles cases surged in another outbreak around the Utah-Arizona border, Trump called for combination children's vaccines like the MMR to be split up into separate shots—a call made decades ago by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who lost his medical license over his 1988 study that linked autism to the combination vaccine, which was later retracted.
High vaccine rates allowed the US to declare measles eliminated in 2000, but Scientific American reported Thursday that the current measles outbreaks are bringing the US "toward losing its measles-free status by early next year."
The worsening measles outbreak in South Carolina, said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), "is yet another horrifying consequence of Trump and RFK Jr.'s Make America Sick Agenda."
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has urged residents to be vaccinated against measles, but said on Thursday, "We are not going to do mandates on people to go get vaccinated."
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the US Health and Human Services Department, also continued to suggest that vaccination is principally a matter of personal liberty rather than public health, telling the New York Times that people in the affected community in South Carolina should talk to their doctors about "what is best for them."
On Thursday, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that along with the Republican Party's vote against extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Trump administration is raising questions about its push to "Make America Health Again" as it undermines "lifesaving vaccines and spark[s] disease outbreaks."
"The Trump administration," he said, "is endangering the health of the American people."
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