Political Quotes

“I will concede the point because I can remember so well when these Medicare HMO choice plans came rolling into Illinois and so many other States and realized they couldn't make the money off seniors they planned to and pulled the rug out from under them. They called my office and they said: What happened to this Medicare HMO we were supposed to turn to? We can't trust them. They are not there. We are sticking with Medicare. So my point to the Senator from Pennsylvania is that we are dealing here with a Medicare option which most seniors don't view as an ugly, reprehensible, big government option. They view it instead as something they are comfortable with, that America for 40 years has lived with, and has been a dramatic success since the days when President Lyndon Johnson came forward and said: There is no reason, since your mother and father, once retired, now have a little Social Security check, why they shouldn't have health care. So we are going to create Medicare. In the 1960s, we did it. It worked. What is the proof of its value and effectiveness? The fact that seniors are living longer. It is an indication to me that this Government-run Medicare Program has worked. It pains my friends from the conservative side of the aisle to concede the fact that a Government program works, but Medicare does work. And because it has worked, seniors trust it.”