Steny Hoyer: “the previous speaker, of course, will have at least 35 to 37 or 39 years to worry about this problem. So for him it is…”

“the previous speaker, of course, will have at least 35 to 37 or 39 years to worry about this problem. So for him it is not an immediate problem. For some of us, however, there is a heightened concern. And I will tell my friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), my young friend from Wisconsin, and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), who protest over and over and over again that we are not privatizing Social Security, of course, their party was led until just last year by a gentleman who said that we ought not to have Medicare in a free society and formerly led by a speaker who said it was going to fade away. And millions, I tell my gentlewoman friend and my young friend, million of seniors, forget about what we here in the House say, millions of seniors and their experts who have studied your program very carefully believe it is going to privatize Medicare, notwithstanding your legerdemain about our definition of it currently being privatized. Nobody believes that. The fact of the matter is millions of seniors have reported back to my colleagues, hey, this program is not good for us.”