On the recordMarch 20, 2013
I want to thank my friend, Dr. Ami Bera, for allowing me to speak for a few minutes. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to dispel the oft repeated notion that Medicare is somehow the problem in the current fiscal crisis. Republicans have, in budget after budget, attempted to voucherize the program and end the Medicare guarantee as we know it. They would break the promise we made to our Nation's seniors decades ago, one in which we told hardworking middle class Americans that if they paid in through their wages and trusted in their government that they would be taken care of. Medicare is the most efficient health plan in our country. It has a 2 percent overhead. Let me repeat that. It has a 2 percent overhead. More efficient than any private plan. The problem isn't Medicare. The problem is the rising cost of health care and what it is we have to do to get that under control. It's a cost that has gone up exponentially in our country compared to the rest of the world. Republicans want to do nothing about the real problem of rising costs. Rather than tackle the hard issue, they want to shift the costs on to seniors, people like my mom. She's 96 right now, and she depends on that important program. Six years ago, she had to be checked up for a heart condition. She had had an aneurysm below her diaphragm and it was part of the arterial system. They said that it would be difficult to solve and that they would have to provide a stent because of her age, as she was 70 at that time.…
