Political Quotes

“I rise today to express tremendous concern about the latest news regarding the Medicare trust fund and the solvency of the trust fund. We are now hearing that Medicare, in fact, will become insolvent 7 years sooner than we had been told last year. During the time between last year and this year, there has been a Medicare bill passed by the Senate. I believe there is a direct correlation between what was passed, which I have deep concerns about, and the new number we are hearing about Medicare being jeopardized and becoming insolvent 7 years sooner. We know that in the bill that was passed last year, there were payments for the first time to private plans so they could compete with traditional Medicare. We know that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it in fact has cost 13.2 percent more for the private sector through Medicare+Choice to provide the very same services as traditional Medicare. Rather than saying we should go, then, with the most cost-effective way to provide health care services for seniors and use traditional Medicare, the response, unfortunately, from the Congress and the President was to subsidize private insurance companies and HMOs so they could compete more favorably.”