Political Quotes

“Right, and thank you. Because there was so much, almost, fear language surrounding this debate in terms of whether Medicare is bankrupt, whether Medicare is going broke, whether Medicare is running out of money, it's important for people to go back and read the trustees' report, which was just issued a few weeks ago. It is a report that is issued on an annual basis. It has been since 1966 when Harry Truman was the first Medicare beneficiary to sign up for the program with his wife, Bess; but it has had its ups-and-downs over the years. The report that just came out said that Medicare is fully solvent, can pay all of its bills through 2024 and that it can pay 90 percent of its bills through 2045. Now, there is no question that, compared to last year's report, there was some deterioration in terms of that projection, but the trustees were careful to point out the fact that that slippage in terms of some of the years of lost solvency was due to the economy and due to payroll tax collection. It had nothing to do with overuse or certainly nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act. In fact, they said the opposite, which was that the Affordable Care Act actually extended the solvency of the Medicare program by a factor of 8 years. Thank God we had passed that legislation, because we really would almost be bumping up into a cliff at this point if we hadn't done it.…”