Ed Markey: “40 years ago today, President Kennedy's assassination released an energy in our country that led to the passage of the…”

“40 years ago today, President Kennedy's assassination released an energy in our country that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Medicare. By contrast, the bill before us today was conceived in secret, crafted by special interests, and cloaked in a prescription drug benefit to disguise its real purpose: the destruction of the Medicare program as we have known it in the United States over the past 40 years. This bill is a Thanksgiving turkey, and this turkey will not fly. It forces senior citizens into HMOs. It gives HMOs billion-dollar subsidies. It raises drug costs for the poorest Americans, and it drops millions of seniors from their retirement plans. Some claim this bill will provide America's senior citizens with new prescription drug coverage, but it will force millions of our frail elders to pay more for prescription drugs than they do now. Some claim it will lower Medicare premiums, but it will require Medicare beneficiaries to forfeit the power to choose their own doctors or their own drugs. Some claim it will make the Medicare program more efficient, but it will stick taxpayers with the bill for billions of dollars in subsidies to HMOs and new tax shelters for the rich. This bill is not the elixir for Medicare; it is, rather, a poison pill that leads to the destruction of the Medicare program as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson envisioned it.”