In 2005, Republicans passed a 360-page reconciliation bill without a single Democratic vote that provided deep cuts to Medicaid and raised premiums on Medicare beneficiaries.
The Congressional Budget Office tells us that Medicare spending has increased fivefold in the past 42 years, dramatically more than all other categories of federal spending.
I believe we must protect Medicare’s guaranteed benefit, and I will oppose any effort to dismantle Medicare and turn it into a voucher system.
I’ve endorsed ‘Medicare for All’ at the federal level. I do not believe a state can accomplish that on its own.
People like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been very busy educating America about just how much socialism we have, from Social Security to Medicare to public schools to public universities, and how much we love that. The truth is that there is no pure socialist or capitalist economy on earth.
Liberals are wrong to think that opposition to health reform is a rejection of big government. If health reform consisted of extending Medicare to everyone, people would be delighted. There are millions of 64-year-olds out there who can hardly wait to be 65.
I think it’s really important to get in early and for women to do mammograms, to do screenings, to do all these things that aren’t always necessarily covered by Medicare, by insurances, and to really start working to get those more available for people.
Traditionally, Medicare’s assurance has been that for the elderly and persons with disabilities that they will not be alone when confronted with the full burden of their health care costs.
While the Left seems obsessed with increasing taxes and spending even more money, conservatives have focused more heavily on the need for spending restraint and entitlement reform – primarily to preserve and protect the future of the Medicare program. Overlooked in all of this is the future of Medicaid.
It is time that we provide clarity for our seniors, informing them of the services available that will lower the costs of their prescription drugs and strengthen the overall integrity of the Medicare entitlement.
At a time when the United States is handing out tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, corporate jet owners, and millionaires and billionaires, it is ludicrous that we would even be looking at Social Security and Medicare as a solution to our debt crisis.
Medicare has provided healthcare coverage for older Americans and disabled persons for 50 years, and I believe that steps must be taken to ensure that it remains an option for all Americans now and into the future.
At the end of the day, my hope is that when the new Medicare- Prescription Drug Law gets up and fully running a lot more seniors will pay a whole lot less than they do today for their much-needed medications.
For all their scare tactics, President Obama and Democrats have no plan whatsoever to preserve Medicare for future generations – or protect it for today’s seniors and those nearing retirement. They did, however, cut Medicare by $700 billion to bankroll Obamacare.
I don’t believe there’s a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.
The people who support Mr. Curbelo’s campaign are people who oppose Medicare and Social Security, want to reform it to take it away from our seniors, and oppose a minimum wage.
When bills come in, Medicare get so many bills every day, it pays most of them and then goes back later to figure out if they were fraudulent, if it ever goes back at all.
The true enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who defend an imploding status quo.
I opposed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. I opposed the Wall Street bailout. I opposed the stimulus bill.
If you got problems like unemployment, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and there’s a guy that’s always been there for you and for your family, then you say ‘He’s a nice guy. I don’t know where he came from or how long he’s been here, but Charlie Rangel’s the man.’ That’s what I’m relying on.
From routine hospital visits and prescription drugs, to emergencies and hospice care, Medicare covers the full range of health services that our nation’s seniors rely on every single day.
I will never turn Medicare into a voucher. No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and dignity they have earned.
We need to save and strengthen and fix Medicare. Seniors realize Medicare is broken.
The number of people with HIV receiving Medicare benefits has grown over time, reflecting growth in the size of the of the HIV positive population in the U.S. but also an increased lifespan for people with HIV due to antiretroviral medicines and other treatment advances.
Bureaucracies tend to perpetuate themselves, whether they are multinational corporations or large government institutions such as Medicare, often at the expense of those that they are supposed to serve.
My votes against the education bill and my votes against the Medicare bill got huge play at home.
Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare and Social Security policies, we’ve stolen almost $60 trillion from our children.
I would hope that we could have this in an adult fashion and stop demagogueing the issue anytime you talk about any substantive reforms that will actually save social security and save Medicare and save the system from imploding on itself.
When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications.
I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it’s Social Security, whether it’s Medicaid, whether it’s Medicare.
We do not need to end Medicare. We don’t need to throw people who are younger than 55 years old to the wolves which is what we do.
I’m too young for Medicare and too old for broads to care.
Of the alternatives we face in controlling long-term spending growth, moving Medicare to a voucher system seems only mildly unfortunate – and nothing as compared with a debt-driven economic crisis that could stem from inaction.
We are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have a Medicare for All type of program, and that’s an idea whose time has come. It is the morally right thing to do.
Part of my training was learning how to refer patients to cardiologists for heart problems, gastroenterologists for stomach issues, and rheumatologists for joint pain. Given that most physicians were trained this way, it’s no wonder that the average Medicare patient has six doctors and is on five different medications.
We really don’t have much of a choice between Obama and Romney. Neither one of them are for Medicare or taking the steps that’s needed for jobs in America.
However, the Medicare prescription drug benefit has changed, and if the nearly 3,000 seniors I have met through 12 town halls can represent a sample of opinion, many seniors do not yet understand the prescription drug program and do not plan to sign up for coverage.
I’m telling you, as a doctor who spent about half of his time in the office taking care of our seniors on Medicare, it is a program that intentions to work are much better than the way it’s working today in terms of practicality.
Medicare and Social Security have created the healthiest and most financially secure generation of senior citizens in American history.
America as we know it will end unless we end Medicare as we know it.
Fraudulent and improper payments have long bedeviled Medicare, a $466 billion program. In particular, payments for durable medical equipment, like power wheelchairs and diabetic test kits, are ripe for fraud.
When the NRA wants to prevent gun reform, they funnel money into the campaigns of candidates nationwide to make sure they don’t vote for common sense gun reform. Insurance companies do the same to block Medicare for All and prevent us from guaranteeing health care as a right, not a privilege.
A major driver of the cost of healthcare in the United States is a compromise that was reached with the American Medical Association in the 1960s when Medicare was first established.
We’re saying no changes for Medicare for people above the age of 55. And in order to keep the promise to current seniors who’ve already retired and organized their lives around this program, you have to reform it for the next generation.
I think we will begin to see some real efforts made to do things like protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Social Security and Medicare represent promises made and we must keep these commitments.
I opposed No Child Left Behind, I opposed the Medicare prescription drug bill, I opposed the Wall Street bailout. What the American people are starting to see is that Republican, Republicans on Capitol Hill get it and the Democrats, from the White House to Capitol Hill, just don’t get it.
Medicare’s top officials said in 2006 that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency, keeping billions of dollars out of the hands of people trying to game the system.
We cannot afford to balance the budget on the backs of America’s middle class and seniors and must do what it takes to strengthen Social Security and Medicare, including enabling the government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
