Bart Stupak: “Well, we have sat through the budget battles, the gentleman and I, and through the committee now for about 10 years; and…”

“Well, we have sat through the budget battles, the gentleman and I, and through the committee now for about 10 years; and we have seen first to start out was Medicare Choice, Medicare+Choice, Medicare Access; they always have these nice names. They said, okay, so many seniors can go into it. Every year we have never hit the target yet for what we have provided as an experiment. Because what happens is that they come in, start to insure in an area, see the costs are going up a little too much, and then they pull out, and then the seniors have to scramble to try and get coverage, and it just has not worked at all. Mr. Speaker, it is not going to work for prescription drugs; and let us face it, they are going to get a prescription drug plan and if they take their plan, they are going to give up traditional Medicare, get a privatization of it, a voucher with a gap for prescription drug coverage. It is not going to work. It is not the Senate plan. They are not even guaranteed a price, and no one is there to help them out. They are on their own. This choice sounds great; but what seniors want is the security that Medicare provides, not some choice that they cannot understand or be able to predict what is going to happen 3 or 4 years from now.”