Political Quotes

“Exactly right. When I was young, before Medicare, we lived in a rural community, there was a county hospital. My dad took me to the county hospital to visit a rancher. We were ranchers. On the other side of the hill was another rancher that was elderly and was at the county hospital. I will remember forever in my life going to that ward with maybe 15, 20 elderly people side by side in beds, the stench. The care was almost nonexistent. Poverty was everywhere. It was worse than horrible. But in 1964 this Nation did something very, very important. Together with Social Security, they brought seniors out of poverty because it was the medical expenses that forced them into poverty. So Medicare brought seniors out of poverty. It went from, I don't know, I think it was almost 80 percent of seniors were in poverty to a situation today where maybe 8 to 10 percent are in poverty. Social Security, Medicare; absolutely critical. But any attempt to change that goes right to the heart of our values as Americans. We will take care of our seniors. That's not to say changes are not possible. Of course changes ought to be public. For example, we ought to be negotiating with the drug companies over the price of prescription drugs. But, oh no. When the prescription drug benefit was passed, added into it and signed by George W. Bush was a paragraph that said the Federal Government is a price taker; it cannot negotiate the price of drugs. So we spend billions and billions where it's not necessary.”