Political Quotes

“Then they are going to come back in 10 years and say, see, Medicare does not work. Of course it does not work when the insurance company insures you when you are healthy and then taxpayers and Medicare get you when you are old and sick. Of course it is going to work that way. That is the irony of all this. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle over and over tell us that seniors, that the private sector can do it better, that government is this huge bureaucracy, that Medicare is inefficient and bloated, that nimble, quick-on-its-feet Medicare, the private insurance system can do it better. So, okay, if that is the case, why, then, does Medicare have lower administrative costs, why does Medicare have lower marketing costs, lower salaries and all that? But if you accept that they can let them compete, so why are we giving the Medicare HMOs $20 billion and say, yeah, of course one can compete if we give you $20 extra billion, but if the playing field were really level it is clear that the public system wins. That is why 38 years ago in the end Medicare was created. Because in 1965 when President Johnson and Democratic majorities in both Houses, because, as we said, almost no Republicans in either House voted for this bill to create Medicare, in those days half of America's seniors did not have insurance. Why? Because the private insurance market did not find seniors attractive.”