Sam Gibbons: “for those who are watching C-SPAN, they have been already treated to a part of the debate on Medicare and Medicaid. Why…”

“for those who are watching C-SPAN, they have been already treated to a part of the debate on Medicare and Medicaid. Why do we continue to harp on this subject? I want to first of all say that I have been on the Medicare program for 10 years. I have paid my payments and paid my dues in that program, and my wife has been on the program for about that time, too. But even more importantly, I was here in the Congress when we created Medicare. For the last 27 years, I have been on the Medicare committee, the Committee on Ways and Means. During all that time, I have taken a deep interest in the program and have helped nurture it. So I know what I am talking about. The Republicans, though, have seized upon some reason for giving a great tax cut to their wealthy friends, and the only place they can get the money is out of the Medicare and Medicaid program. Now, the Republicans are going to take, within a matter of 2 weeks, from Medicare and Medicaid recipients a total of $489 billion out of those two programs. Let me repeat that: $489 billion, almost a trillion dollars, half a trillion dollars out of those programs. And most of that will end up in the pockets of their wealthy friends. The Medicare and Medicaid programs are powerfully complex, in benefits as well as in structure. The Medicare program is not broke. That is the first thing that we must understand. The Medicare program was set up as a pay-as-you-go program when I was in Congress here.…”