Pete Stark: “It really is a matter of life and death.”

If we had vouchers, or whatever you want to call premium support things, the Medicare would stop being a defined benefit plan and become a defined contribution plan, would it not?

The home health copayment, for instance, I think is largely ascribed to be used by old, sick, poor widows, and raising the price that they have to pay is just one more Republican effort to deny equal rights to women.

It gave every shyster and promoter a loophole. We now have to keep rewriting the laws like the tax code.

Medicare is one of our Nation's best programs, but it has always been a work in progress, and it needs ongoing fine-tuning and changing to keep it relevant.