Bill O’Reilly is a socialist. He is in favor of Medicare, he is in favor of Social Security. Those are socialist programs.
Student loans, Social Security, and Medicare make a difference in the lives of working families every day, and the conversation that should be taking place is how we can save these programs, not weaken them.
Sometimes in this whole Medicare prescription drug debate, we focus on the prescription drug benefit, and I am glad we do because it is the first time we have ever offered real help to seniors, especially the poor, those in need.
There are very powerful and wealthy special interests who want to privatize or dismember virtually every function that government now performs, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, public education or the Postal Service.
I told them I would work to strengthen and secure Medicare for generations to come, and I told them I would fight for a new prescription drug benefit under Medicare.
It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.
I’m absolutely confident – in fact, I’m optimistic that by focusing on quality and innovation in Medicare – that we can save that program for the long term in a very positive way.
Open the borders to willing workers from any and all nations. They will create businesses that pay taxes, especially payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security benefits of retiring baby boomers.
We not only heard it before 20 years ago, before George Bush in 2001 passed his tax relief, before in 2003 the tax relief were past, we were told they were dead. Before we provided prescription drugs for Medicare, we were told it wasn’t going to happen.
I believe we ought to subsidize some health care for the poor, but Medicare subsidizes everyone’s health care.
I have to tell you as a doctor, 25 years of practice, not as a politician using talking points, as somebody who has taken care of Medicare patients, we can make it a lot better.
Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage?
I leave Medicare alone. I create a new system for everyone under 65 where they get health care as a right. It’s a basic plan. We roll Medicaid into that, but then we allow people to have choices and get private insurance to supplement that basic government plan.
What are we Democrats fighting for? We are not fighting for salvation and going to heaven. But we are fighting for Medicaid, Medicare, health care, education, jobs, helping old folks.
Healthcare costs are rising, and not just Medicare and Medicaid, but healthcare in general.
Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.
The Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, which might be the most corrupt piece of legislation in history, was a huge giveaway of taxpayer funds to the big pharmaceutical companies.
If medicine was practiced in 1965 the way it’s practiced today, there’s no question that prescriptions would have been included in Medicare.
President Obama has admitted that Medicare is on an unsustainable course and that no amount of tax increases can fix it.
They ought to be focused on saving healthcare. They ought to be focused on making sure we don’t privatize Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That’s where the Democrats ought to be.
Why does Medicare have such difficulty accommodating a cut – no, wait, a trim to its annual spending increase – of two measly percentage points? Two words: baby boom.
A Romney-Ryan administration will protect and strengthen Medicare, for my Mom’s generation, for my generation, and for my kids and yours.
And because of these programs like Medicare, Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, we now have the healthiest and wealthiest group of senior citizens that the world has ever seen. This is a continuing commitment to that.
When we think of entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare immediately come to mind. But by any fair standard, the holy trinity of United States social policy should also include the mortgage-interest deduction – an enormous benefit that has also become politically untouchable.
‘Democratic socialism’ is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And ‘social democracy’ – a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all – is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren’t yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.
Like my colleagues, I did about 10 to 15 town hall meetings on this issue; and what I found is people came with a sincere interest to learn, a sincere interest to cut through the rhetoric and understand how this Medicare bill impacts them in their daily lives.
Equipment sellers can pocket more than $2,500 every time they send a powered wheelchair to a patient and bill Medicare.
I don’t think Donald Trump is a conservative. I think his line on China for example, that he’s going to talk tough to China. China didn’t create Social Security, Medicare. China isn’t spending a fifth of a billion dollars every hour that it doesn’t have.
We must unequivocally reject any cuts to Social Security or Medicare benefits.
Today, Medicare provides health insurance to about 40 million seniors and disabled individuals each year. The number is only expected to grow as the baby boomers begin retiring.
It’s critical – that the people that are benefiting today from Medicare and Social Security that they not see benefit reductions. It’s awfully hard to tell someone who might be 82, that they’ve gotta go back to work, because their benefits are gonna be chopped. That’s not gonna happen.
We believe that if you put in place the mechanisms that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned, as well as the programs in Medicaid, that we can actually get to a better result and do what most Americans are learning how to do, which is to do more with less.
In Pennsylvania, 38 percent of Pennsylvania seniors chose to get their Medicare from a plan called Medicare Advantage. It’s their choice. Forty-seven percent of them are going to lose it under ‘Obamacare’ according to Medicare by 2017.
One line I’d draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn’t. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they’ll get penalized with lower benefits.
How we continue to fund Medicare and Medicaid into the future is a pressing issue of national concern.
Medicare should be allowed to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices on prescriptions.
We’re going to lose Social Security and Medicare if Republicans and Democrats do not come together and find a solution like Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. I will be the Ronald Reagan if I can find a Tip O’Neill.
I’m on Medicare now. If I go and have a big operation, it costs me nothing. It should cost me a little. I’m not rich, but I can afford a few grand if I have to have my appendix taken out. I can pitch in a little bit.
We think Medicare Advantage is a key part of healthcare and is bringing some of the innovation – I think a lot of the innovation – back to that marketplace for seniors.
We shouldn’t be undermining Medicare for those who need it most in order to give more tax cuts to those who need them least.
All the experts agree Medicare is going to go broke.
Voters have figured out Republicans want to save Medicare for the long term, and they know that those who say everything’s just fine with it aren’t leveling with them.
And in terms of entitlement reforms, we have to save them from themselves, because if we don’t reform social security and we don’t reform Medicare, they’re going to actually implode.
When people see the budget, they’re going to say, ‘Oh, my God, I wanted a tax cut, but I didn’t know what you were going to do to health care and to Medicare and national defense.’
We must advocate for policies that stabilize our health care markets, lower premiums and drug costs, protect Medicare and address Nevada’s physician residency shortage.
As we face tough decisions in Washington, we must never forget our responsibility to protect Medicare and preserve it for future generations.
Social Security and Medicare are necessary safety nets, but they are nearing insolvency as fewer pay in, more take out, and more take out more.
My mom’s now enjoying Medicare. She’s already retired. She earned it. But for those of us, you know, the X-Generation on down, it won’t be there for us on its current path.
Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.
Workers organized and fought for worker rights and food safety, Social Security and Medicare – they fought to change government. And they won.
Republicans’ focus on defunding or scaling back Obamacare – an unpopular entitlement program – rather than entitlements generally, namely Social Security and Medicare, has raised questions about their true objective. But critics forget that spending is fungible.