Al Franken: “I have come to the floor to talk about Medicare. My esteemed colleague from Alabama just talked about Medicare reform.…”

“I have come to the floor to talk about Medicare. My esteemed colleague from Alabama just talked about Medicare reform. The Presiding Officer and I--all of us--pay into Medicare every month, so we are entitled to Medicare benefits when we reach age 65. The fact that we are entitled to these benefits is not bad. In fact, it is very good for so many millions of American seniors. The fact that many call it an entitlement only means we have a right to expect to get the benefits we paid in for. Entitlements, in this case, should not be a pejorative. We have heard a lot about entitlement programs recently and about the place of Medicare in the conversation about our Federal deficit. We just heard the Senator from Alabama talk about that. He said there is no discussion of reform of Medicare. But in these discussions sometimes I think a critical component is missing, which is we already reformed Medicare, and these reforms extended the life of Medicare by 8 years while expanding benefits for seniors. During the recent campaign, as the Presiding Officer has pointed out, we saw a lot of ads about the so-called $716 billion in cuts to Medicare and how terrible that was, is, and will be. I would like to take just a few minutes to explain what these savings were, what they are, and what they will be. The two biggest sources of the $716 billion are, one, insurance companies overcharging the government for Medicare Advantage and savings in payments to hospitals.…”