Political Quotes

“like the preceding speaker before me from Tennessee, my good friend, the Dooley-Tauscher bill, I think, addresses the right priorities, the right common values we have. It does not try to end Medicare as we know it. It keeps Medicare, that has done so well over 40 years, intact. And unlike the other bills, it lives within the $400 billion frame. It is true to the principles that have held Medicare true. It relies on part B of Medicare to deliver the benefit. It does not try to privatize that benefit. It is a low-income benefit for our seniors. But, most importantly, it is universal in its benefit. Everybody would get it. There would be a minimum of a 25 to 30 percent discount on drugs. One of the biggest debates here is not only a benefit under Medicare of prescription drugs, but it is making the drugs that our elderly need every day when they go to the drugstore or their local pharmacy, making those medications affordable. The benefit accounts for all drug spending. That is the core principle here. It is a universal benefit. So this is the right type of approach. The other day the Washington Post endorsed it. And, today, in the other body, a bipartisan group of Senators will be introducing it. I think it expresses our common values and our common principles of what is true to our vision of what Medicare should be, not what it should not be.”