Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, on behalf of our seniors, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican budget that ends Medicare. The Republican budget ends the Medicare guarantee in 11 short years. In 11 years, reliable care for our seniors will be replaced with the risky voucher scheme. The Republican plan supposedly generously gives senior citizens a gift, an $8,000-a-year voucher. Seniors then must identify an insurance carrier that will take it. This is called choice. Since the Republicans also want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, there is nothing to protect seniors from being excluded from coverage if they have a preexisting condition. This is called choice. I don't know too many people 55 years and older who don't have some health-related problem. There is nothing that protects seniors from insurance companies canceling their coverage if an illness becomes too expensive, so I don't know where the choice is. There is nothing that will protect taxpayers from incurring massive costs when uninsured seniors show up in emergency rooms around the country with untreated diabetes leading to kidney failure and heart disease, and untreated hypertension leading to strokes. This isn't much of a choice. We are simply fooling ourselves if we think all seniors will be able to just write a check and pay the difference. A more likely scenario is seniors will simply not have medical coverage. I often say that you can judge a society by how it treats its elderly and its children.…”