Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman, Dr. Benishek. That was an unexpected recognition there. I thank you, sir, for that. I'm just going to give a brief top-level overview of where we started with health care in this Nation and why we are here today. I have to take you back to post-World War II, where we began to have the indication of a crisis protection form of insurance; that is, insurance that is there just to keep the family from going bankrupt over medical bills. That seemed to be well received. Over time, it became obvious that there were other people, the people who were poor, people who were elderly, who could not get coverage in the normal marketplace of insurance. As a result, Congress in the mid- 1960s, created Medicaid, health care coverage for the poor, and Medicare, health care coverage for those who are 65 and over. That was all well and good; however, this was the first real foray of the government managing health care, that is, the financing of health care. The promises were great to the doctors to get them to go along with it. The promises were great to the patients. It has rocked along for a while pretty well. People who receive Medicare benefits enjoy them.…”