Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, if you want to hear some ideas--and I think it is important that instead of just us knocking what was introduced, we could also give some ideas--certainly, for me, and I think I am also speaking for Ted Lieu, we would prefer to have Medicare for all, so people have a stable insurance, a system that we know works, a system that actually brings down costs. But if we can't do that, there are many things we can do in the meantime. Why not drop the age of Medicare eligibility to 55? If you do that, you are going to also decrease premiums for people who are not on Medicare, people who are just buying private health insurance. You could be on Medicare at 55 and still be working. What about for those counties that don't have private insurers on the subsidized market? They should be able to buy into the Federal health insurance plans of all of the workers who live in those districts, or buy into the plans that Ted and I have. Why can't we let them do that? Why not cover every U.S. citizen up until the age of 18 under Medicaid to relieve the parents of that burden? We can also start looking at community health centers, reinforcing those to make sure that we are taking the poorest of the poor who actually cost the most when it comes to healthcare costs and, instead of forcing them into a hospital or into a primary care situation, they could get consistent care without putting a burden on the overall medical system.…”