By Tony Henderson

As both a minister and as president of the NAACP Denver, I believe access to high-quality, accessible health care is a right that should be afforded to each and every one of us. To that end, Medicare Advantage has become a critical component of our health system, helping secure access to care for tens of millions of older Americans and patients with disabilities here in Colorado and throughout the nation.

The program now accounts for more than half of the entire Medicare patient population. It enjoys especially strong support and popularity among minority and rural communities because of the barriers to care that the program helps patients and families overcome. According to the data, nearly 69% of Latino seniors and roughly 65% of Black seniors choose Medicare Advantage instead of the original, fee-for-service model.

This issue is personal to me. My mother, Nettie, is a Medicare Advantage beneficiary who loves her coverage. And together in early March, we traveled to Washington, D.C. to tell lawmakers how important this program is. This was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about how policy decisions affect millions of Americans, especially given earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed a virtually flat payment rate for the program next year, which will cause enrollees to experience higher costs and fewer benefits. Without enough funding for the program, seniors could also lose access to doctors they’ve been seeing for years who understand their medical history. Here in Colorado, Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet can do their part by sharing their support for strong funding for the program.

Medicare Advantage covers a broader range of essential benefits than traditional Medicare, including built-in prescription drug coverage and dental care. Though these benefits are included in Medicare Advantage, they bring a new cost and administrative overhead under traditional Medicare.

Of course, everyone needs to do their own homework when it comes to choosing the right plan and coverage options. But when they do the research, most find that Medicare Advantage plans go above and beyond traditional Medicare. They include not only more benefits, but they also cover more supplemental services that address individual patients’ health care needs and limitations.

I’m talking about things like transportation assistance, telehealth, in-home support, and meal delivery, all of which help at-risk patients overcome mobility or transit issues that might otherwise stop them from getting the care they need. These offerings are especially important for rural Coloradans, as people in outlying communities may be facing hour-or-more-long drives just to get the care they need.

We’ve seen what happens in the past when funding gets pulled from Medicare Advantage: seniors have fewer options, get weaker benefits, and pay higher costs. That’s not the direction we should be heading.

Protecting Medicare Advantage will help some of the most vulnerable members of our communities to maintain access to the care they deserve. That’s why lawmakers on both sides of the aisle need to come out and show their support for this program.

That should be no problem for anyone who claims to support seniors and at-risk communities. However, for lawmakers who can’t muster the political fortitude to stand up for Medicare Advantage because it is simply the right thing to do, it’s worth noting that seniors are watching, and they’ll remember how their elected officials stood up for them — or failed to — when they take to the polls in November.

Tony Henderson is a minister, educator and president of the Denver Chapter of the NAACP.