Charles Rangel: “it just seems to me that, whether one is Republican or Democrat, that we all have at least the same concern for our…”

“it just seems to me that, whether one is Republican or Democrat, that we all have at least the same concern for our older Americans who, as they get older, more susceptible to illness and pain, we have done a pretty good job with Medicare and giving older people access to doctors and to hospitals. Even initially those people who did not like the program would have to admit that it has really removed a lot of pain for some deserving Americans. Now, we reach the point in saying, what good is access to health care if after the doctors prescribed the medicine to keep one well, that one cannot afford to do it. Well, it was easy for us to say that we had to establish priorities. We always had the Communist threat. We always had to invest in defense. But now when everybody agrees that, no matter who takes the credit for it, we have an opportunity really, not to pick and choose which are the winners and losers among the older people, but to be able to say we thank them for the investments that they have made in this great Republic. They are aged, but they are not forgotten; and that we trust them enough that we will take some of this surplus and make them whole so that they will never have to worry about not paying their rent or their mortgage or getting the foods that they need because they had to pay for their medicine.”