Janice Schakowsky: “once upon a time in 1989, a group of very angry seniors chased their Congressman, the powerful chairman of the House…”

“once upon a time in 1989, a group of very angry seniors chased their Congressman, the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, into his car because they wanted him to know that they did not like the catastrophic health care bill. This happens to be the picture that appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune in August of 1989. This was a bill that passed this body with overwhelming bipartisan support and all of the national senior citizens organizations supported the bill. There was only one problem. No one had checked in with rank-and-file seniors around the country who sat down with their calculators and they figured out what the benefit would be that they would get and how much it would cost them, and they did not like the answer. Now, I show you this photo not to revive the debate on catastrophic because within a couple of months the bill was repealed, something very unusual and usually very difficult. I show you this photo as a friendly warning. If you pass H.R. 1 tonight, you better also go out and buy some running shoes because senior citizens are too smart to be fooled by Republican speeches or anybody else's speeches. They will figure out on their own what this bill does, which is, as the current chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means hopes, destroy Medicare as we know it. Seniors will get out their calculators and figure it out.”