Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Tonko. I want to thank Congressman Garamendi, who did great service as the insurance commissioner in the State of California. He understands these issues intimately. I think this is really a generational gut check for our country in terms of whether or not this attempt to butcher Medicare, one of the most successful programs in American and world history, is going to succeed or not. John described very powerfully the public wards in the public hospitals and the third-tier status that seniors had prior to 1965. Kaiser Permanente actually did a study in terms of just reminding us of what this country faced when President Johnson signed that legislation on Harry Truman's porch step. At the time Medicare passed, only 50 percent of seniors over 65 in America had health insurance of any sort whatsoever. Part of it was class. Part of it was the underwriting rules. But part of it is, just as Mr. Garamendi said, age is a factor which carries risk. And there is no insurance company that evaluates risk within its own book of business that can really take all comers when you're talking about a population of 65 and up. Life expectancy was 70 in 1965. So we passed Medicare, and what happened is we created a guaranteed benefit. The genius of Medicare is that we pooled the risk, and we actually made an affordable system financed through payroll taxes, premiums. The system has had its ups and downs financially over the past 45 years.…”