Political Quotes

“Mr. Tonko, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for rounding up 180-plus Members of this House. On any issue that is tough, but then having them sign on to a piece of legislation that would advance the care that individuals receive and the support that families need. The cure for Alzheimer's, all of those pieces of legislation, which Ms. Waters talked about, those are all pieces of the puzzle. And they deal with--I am going to end with just two charts, so it is really where I started. This is a different version of one of the charts that deals with the costs that we are talking about. These are the total cost in the system. If you take a look at it, 2015, you are talking about a quarter of a billion dollars, just under $226 billion, of which the great majority is Medicare and Medicaid, and then out-of-pocket and other payers, or the other insurance companies. It will rise each year until we get to 2050, which is not that far away. Thirty-five years out we will be well over $1 trillion, of which we will bust the bank, the Medicare. There is a lot of discussion around here about the deficit. The real factors in the deficit are this health care issue. That is where we are going to find the budget deficit.…”