Barbara Boxer: “If the Chair will advise me when I have used 5 minutes. So let me now tell you about Medicare. In the Republican budget…”

“If the Chair will advise me when I have used 5 minutes. So let me now tell you about Medicare. In the Republican budget, if you are younger than 55, instead of getting the same Medicare your parents had and the same Medicare you have paid into and the same Medicare that you counted on, it is over, folks. It is over. You will get a voucher. There is no more Medicare. They tell you to go out with that voucher and find your own insurance. Now, we know, because studies have shown us, that plan says you will be paying $6,000 a year more out of your own pocket for health care. That is what this so-called Medicare--new Medicare--Program is. It is not Medicare. Medicare is a guaranteed benefit where you take the card and go to the doctor. Here you take a voucher. So now you are 55, and then you get older. If you are lucky enough to get health insurance, and you get older and now you are 70 or 80, and you are taking an insufficient voucher--you are retired--this is a giant nightmare. These are supposed to be the golden years. Well, the people who lose this will have lost the golden Medicare guarantee, I will tell you that. Here is the final point. The Republicans say if you have Medicare, don't worry. You are fine. Baloney. If you end Medicare, destroy it like the Republicans do, the people left in it are part of a dying program that is being phased out. Who is going to try to improve the quality of that program? It is going to be like fixing an Edsel or fixing your typewriter.…”