Sherrod Brown: “Republican leadership will soon unveil legislation representing yet another attempt to undercut Medicare. As they did…”

“Republican leadership will soon unveil legislation representing yet another attempt to undercut Medicare. As they did last year, my Republican colleagues will try to coopt the prescription drug needs of Medicare beneficiaries to secure fundamental changes, privatization, in the way they receive coverage. My Republican friends will use stand-alone drug coverage as a lever to try to privatize Medicare. The irony is that their proposal is being marketed as a kinder, gentler take on Medicare reform. Kinder and gentler, that is, than the President's breathtakingly callous ``let them eat cake'' approach. You have got to give the President and Republicans credit. By playing good cop, bad cop, they are poised to set the clock back 38 years to the beginning of Medicare, 1965, and force seniors back into the private insurance market for their coverage. It is a shining moment for compassionate conservatism. The President acclimated Congress and the public to the most irresponsible of Medicare privatization gambits by proposing to force seniors who need drug coverage out of Medicare and into HMOs. Blatantly exploiting the most vulnerable seniors to achieve the purely ideological goal of Medicare privatization is so offensive, in fact an egregious breach of the public trust, that virtually any alternative would look good in comparison.”